Up early today for a long motor to Morehead City. It was slightly foggy but only that slight fog where you only ever see it at a distance.
Easy start, and basically just a long motor today. I thought we had enough fuel to make it to Morehead City where we planned to stop and pick up fuel, but along the way the fuel gauge was making us uneasy floating near empty. It probably would have been fine, but at some point you realize how un-fine it would be if the engine stopped because of being out of fuel, with no wind to sail, in a narrow channel with a knot or two of current. So we dug out our jerry can and topped us up to aleve our anxiety.
We got into Morehead and hit the marina for a pump out and fuel. No pump out at that location, which kind of sucks because we should have stopped somewhere along the way then to do that. Lesson learned. We did get fuel though, so that is no longer a problem for now!
Also, we realized how bad we are a dock with pilings. We don't have a fender board, which is maybe something we should have figured out before leaving. When we do bump them, we only bump our metal fender rail thankfully, but it's still not great. We can tie some fenders horizontally when we are staying at a dock with pilings, but just coming into a fuel dock or the initial docking, its still very an amature hour adventure every time. Maybe need to find a place to store a fender board...
Anyways, after that, we just anchored out near Sugar Island. This was our intended destination as another kid boat was in this anchorage with a girl Aria had been chatting too. Thankfully it worked out, and she was able to come over for a visit the next day which was really nice. Unfortunately we could only stay the one day, as we need to get south to haul out. They are heading to the Bahamas as well though and there is a good chance we see them again.
The next leg of the ICW doesn't seem to have many great anchorages for us, so it looks like it may be a bit more challenging. Probably some longer day hops instead of the smaller ones we've been doing.
