The Alligator River Marina

The harrowing crossing of the Albemarle Sound left us exhausted and spent, so the Alligator River Marina on was a welcome sight as we entered the Alligator River.  We refueled and then tied up for the night at our assigned slip.  The marina is remote, but nice.  The docks appear to be relatively new.  There is a convenience store on site and a small restaurant that served wonderful food.  The food was mostly typical diner type fare, but I thought it was delicious, especially the fried okra!  The marina also has a bath house with somewhat plain but serviceable showers, washers and dryers, and a lounge with some tables, chairs, a sofa and a TV.  In addition there is free wireless Internet available.  It is a BoatUS participating marina, but they don't discount the fuel unless you purchase a larger amount than we needed, and I don't remember what that amount was.   There was a nice wide open area where I could let the dogs run, something that both they and I appreciated since we could work off some of their pent up energy.

We were docked next to a sail boat from New York.  The owner was a young man from Florida named Ryan, and he had just purchased the boat in New York, and as he put it, was delivering it to himself in Florida.  He owned a real estate company and was in his "off" season, so had the time to make the trip.  We found out he had limited sailing experience, he had taken a class and done a little bit of sailing before purchasing this boat, so this was quite a step for him to solo this "new to him" boat hundreds of miles to his home.  The boat had one of the old Atomic 4 engines, an engine, that while dependable, is known to be somewhat cantankerous. True to form he was having some unpredictable engine problems, but was able to fix them and keep heading for home.  He had also crossed the Albemarle Sound that day and was as exhausted and beat up as we were.  Due to his limited boating experience he did not have his boat tied properly in his slip so as to weather the predicted storms that night, so I showed him how to add some lines and tie up securely.  Sharon also gifted him with a rosary that she was carrying since we found out that he had been raised as a Catholic.  He seemed appreciative.  

That night we had a tremendous thunderstorm and I saw something I had never seen before. It was raining cats and dogs and the wind was blowing at 30 mph and gusting higher. I happened to look out of the back door of the boat and saw this family of Canadian geese.

They were absolutely anchored to that spot, unmoving, facing into the wind and rain. It was as though they were boats and had turned into the wind and anchored to ride out a storm.  Every now and then one or another would raise their head as if they were drinking, I assume because rain was blowing up their nose. The parents were on either end of the formation and the three youngsters were between them. At one point one of the youngsters decided he had had enough and broke formation. There was a momentary flurry of action while the parents poked and prodded everyone back into formation, then they sat anchored again, riding out the storm.