The Great Bridge to Edenton, North Carolina

 We arrived at the Great Bridge on October 26th. It was just us and a beautiful CSY named "Ocean Cowboy". It wasn't long before two boat that we had passed back in Norfolk were joining us on the dock. We all got together on the dock and discussed what was on all of our minds, the weather. It turns out that one of the skippers was a meteorologist. He was not going to leave the dock for a few days. The expected winds just south of us in Currituck Sound would be very strong. The only marina in the area was booked solid with many other boats deciding to wait it out. 

There is a 48 hour limit to stay on the free dock, but were told by locals that they did not really enforce that rule and only used it to prevent boats from staying long term. We ended up staying 3 nights. 

I think I posted this picture in a previous post, but I will explain the 5 boats. Left to right are, Ocean Cowboy, SHIFT, A boat that joined us on our second night and only stayed one Blue Turtle. Another CSY, I think it was called Equinox and the Cat on the far right. 

There were some nice hiking trails along the waters edge that I enjoyed while we were there. 

This is the view from the observation tower in the picture below

This walkway was constructed to get a view of the marshland

The observation tower

Most of the trails were sandy tracks through the open woods. The fall colors made it a beautiful area.

Across the water from the free dock is the Atlantic Yacht Basin. That middle boat is about 90 feet long. 

The forecast was for one more day of strong winds, but they would be behind us, so we decided to head further south on Saturday the 29th. We started out cruising east down the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal. We were protected from the wind, so it was a very nice ride. Then we turned south when we hit the North River, which then flowed into the Currituck Sound. It was not long before we were able to put up our head sail and then shut the motor off. We cruised with 15 knots of breeze behind us and were making about 6 knots of boat speed. As we got to the far end of the sound the wind picked up to about 25 knots. It was time to reef the head sail to about half way deployed. We were still moving at close to 7 knots. We sailed into the canal that goes by the Coinjock marina. We turned the engine on for a bit, but it really was not needed. We then hit a few turns as we approached the north edge of the Albemarle Sound. This was not the day to head out in the notorious body of water. Albemarle Sound is shallow and with this wind could be nasty. We anchored for the night in the lee of the north shore along with about 10 other boats including our friends Mike and Jeannie on Tardis that we had met at Dandy Haven Marina. We had traveled a little over 40 nm on the day.

We had a decent night at anchor as the wind lightened to around 10 knots overnight. We were up early to make the 47 nm sail down to Edenton. When we hit the sound the wind picked up to around 15 knots right on the beam. We had a reefed main and reefed Genoa and were still moving at around 7 knots. 

You can see by the instruments, that we are going 7.1 knots over ground with 13.7 knots of wind coming at 90 degrees to the direction of the boat (on the beam) in 14.2 feet of water. 

It was a very fast sail for about 2 hours, then the wind started to weaken. I shook out the reefs on both the main and the Genoa and unfurled the staysail. We were now under full sails and traveling at between 5 and 6 knots. The boat was at a comfortable angle and the seas were flat. We had a blast for that second 2 hours. Then the wind just died. I don't think I have ever seen the wind drop off that fast and the water go to glass. We had no option, but to fire up the engine and cruise down the sound on the glassy water. 

It was at this point I determined that our alternator was not charging our batteries. It is not a huge problem for us because our engine does not need electricity to run. We need a battery to start it, but once it is running it does not drain the battery like a modern car does. We also charge the batteries with our solar panels. We had no problem cruising the remaining 3 hours to Edenton. 

I took this shot as we were approaching the bridge over the Albemarle Sound. You can see how calm the waters had become.  

The line of seagulls were there to greet us. There were a large population of seagulls in Edenton this time of year.

 We got into the marina without incident and got tied up. We were greeted by a very nice dock attendant and given a welcome package. The dock was free for the first two nights and then $1 a foot after that. Electricity was $3 per night, but we didn't need that. 

We had a beautiful sunset our first night in Edenton. 

We had traveled about 40 miles off of the beaten path of the ICW to come to Edenton. You may ask why. Well, the reasons are two. We want to take this trip slowly and we want to see many of the small historic towns along the way. We also have friends in the area that we had promised to take sailing, so we were hoping for the wind to come back, so that we could do that. 

I did take a look at the alternator problem after we arrived and it did not take me 5 minutes to determine what the problem was. The ground lug on the side of the alternator had broken off. We installed a very large cable to it when we did our electrical upgrade, but the weight of the cable had caused metal fatigue and it had failed. The problem that by disconnecting the ground while it is charging we had probably caused an internal failure in the alternator. This is a high end alternator that I had taken off of my old motor and installed on the new motor when we made the change in August of 2021. 

I made a few phone calls on Monday morning and found a shop to take a look at the alternator. I called Balmar (The manufacturer of the alternator) and they told me there was a service bulletin about this problem. They gave me some dealers to contact about getting the parts. None of the dealers were helpful. 

Our friends Merry and Chuck joined us later that day (Monday, October 31 Halloween) to take a tour of the town via trolley. It was a very informative and we really enjoyed it. We also got an impromptu history lesson from a retired history teacher that we met in the Penelope Barker House that serves as the welcome center for the town.

The Penelope Barker Home that was relocated to this site along the waterfront.

 

These cannon have been in place here since well before the civil war.

This teapot was a symbol of one of the first women's revolt before the Revolutionary war.

The oldest Courthouse in North Carolina was built in 1767.

This is the jail complete with stocks. I would not allow Kim to put me in there. 

I just love the cypress trees in the water

This is the main street of Edenton complete with a Confederate monument. We loved this little town.

We had dinner at a new restaurant in town that was quite good. We then decided to go back to main street. All of the downtown business were doing trick or treat for the local kids. We all enjoyed seeing the kids in costume.

Here is just a sample of the many costumes with the Cupola house in the background. 

I made plans with Chuck the following day to take my alternator to a shop in Greenville, NC. That was an hour away, but the only place that could take a look. I spent the evening removing the Balmar and getting it ready to take the trip to the shop. I also brought the original alternator that was on the motor when I bought it. If he could not fix it, I wanted to go back to the original and that would require swapping the pulleys. 

We arrived at the Alternator Shop and the Charles got right on it. He quickly determined that the diodes were bad and he feared the stator had also failed, but could not tell for sure unless he had the diodes. I am not sure if I will try to have the Balmar repaired, but I had him swap the pulleys. When we returned to the boat after a nice BBQ lunch I installed the original alternator. I was very happy to see it all worked perfectly. We planned to go sailing the next day to give it all a good test. 

My Beta 38 with the original alternator installed. 

I bypassed all of the wiring for the external voltage regulator to make it easy. I may hook that back up or I may get the Balmar fixed, I am not sure at this point. 

We had a fun sail for the first half of the day, but the wind died again and we ended up motoring back in. Oh well, we gave the engine a good test and it all looked good. 

That is about enough for this entry. We were getting ready to go further south, but I was also watching a weather system that was a potential problem. We all know now that it became a big problem for Florida. In my next entry, I will give you a real time update and let you know what we did next.