Weather Watch in New Bern. Having fun going into town.
Not having fun with the dinghy. The floor can no longer be pumped up. The hole got bigger through lack of attention. The floor is a rubber bag at this point. I think it can be repaired. I'm secretly hoping we're forced to buy a new dinghy.

Pragmatically, here's what we're watching: "Drier air arrives Sun7 with slowly abating NNW-N wind." The recommendation for south-bound travel? "Stiff sailing Sun7, becoming motoring Mon8."
We might be able deal with that. This is the very edge of the weather forecast window. Things will change over the next few days.
We're also watching the marine forecasts for AMZ156 and AMZ252. In these off-shore forecasts, the "stiff sailing" has a some more more details for Sun7.
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"N winds 25 to 30 kt, diminishing to around 20 kt. Seas 7 to 10 ft, subsiding to 5 to 8 ft. Adjacent sounds and rivers very rough, diminishing to choppy. A chance of rain."
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"N winds 15 to 20 kt. Seas 4 to 6 ft."
The first one is a major "yikes". I'm not sure I want to even move to Beaufort if the offshore conditions involve 7-10 ft seas. Also, if it's rainy on Sun7, I can be talking into moving the boat to exploit the calms on Mon8 to Tue9.
Five years ago, we did this passage a motor-sailing. I'm down for a 36-hour motor-sail.
The plan will — of course — evolve with the weather forecast. Until we know for sure, we're anchored at 35°6.1884′N 77°1.9218′W.