Belhaven was pleasant. Very small, and also very alive.

The trip down the AIWW from Belhaven toward Oriental is perhaps the prettiest section of this journey. Did I take pictures? No. It's difficult to capture in a single image.

The Pungo river starts out wide; one could consider sailing down it. After crossing the Pamlico River you run though some creek and canal travel. Then you enter Bay River and finally the Neuse.

The Neuse opens directly into Pamlico sound. It's very wide and the wind whips the waves up into a nasty chop. It's a bit like going out to sea.

Anticipating what may be in store for us tomorrow, so we motored way, way down the South River looking for some shelter from SE winds. We dropped the anchor at 34°55.893′N 076°32.727′W.

The spot is scenic, but isolated. Hardly any cell service.

Tomorrow we'll wait out the weather, also known as a Jammie Play Day.

Here's my cribbage hand during our after-dinner game. Not the best possible hand, but really close.

Looking back at our plan in "2021 South-Bound, Phases I and II" we had an idea of departing from the AIWW to visit Ocracoke.

Since then, we've been looking at several things.

First, the weather isn't really pleasant in the Pamlico sound. It's autumn. When the LO pushes off shore, the HI brings a cold wind from the north.

Second, there's the Blackbeard's Pirate Jamboree. That means a lot of boats and vacationers, which is a nope for us. That also glorifies piracy, which is a second nope for us. We intensely dislike the glorification of piracy; especially Disney's ridiculous Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

So. We're sort of done with that plan. We're skipping a bunch of stops and heading straight for South River and then New Bern.

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