Departed the Belhaven free dock at 7.45 just after a heavy shower and just before another. The rain stayed with us till 11am then cleared to a fine but windy day. Spent over two hours traversing the Pamlico River Alligator River Canal which was pretty much straight NE/SW. Deveen said it was like driving on the Hume Highway and could easily send you to sleep. The water is still quite dark with tannin from the prevalent peat bogs adjacent to the waterways. It reminded us of the Gordon River in Tasmania. 

We will spend Good Friday at anchor in a sheltered bay on the Alligator River about 40 miles South of Elizabeth City, our next destination. Belhaven, where we came from today is at the bottom left, SW corner of the Navionics screen snap below.

      
No internet/cell coverage today for the first time in three weeks so this blogpost will be late getting posted. And of course today is my wedding anniversary, would win points at home if only I could communicate. The area must be so remote as to not require cell communications infrastructure, we have only seen a handful of homes today. We had a number of air force jets flying overhead this afternoon. Perhaps they use this area so as not to upset too many locals over Easter. Remarkably after sunset the atmospherics were just right for us to get a short burst of 30 seconds of video conferencing with Lesley and Jenny back in Brisbane, before the signal dropped out again. Alligator River sunset below.