What a fun trip it was up the Alligator River from Belhaven. It was a canal leaving Belhaven, but deep enough, and wide enough. We followed it for most of the day, through the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

There is allegedly a huge black bear population, a lot of smaller critters (fox, raccoon, etc) and tons of fishing birds. There were a lot of duck blinds along the sides, so I assume a lot of duck hunter in the area. Once we got done with the canal we were into the Alligator River. Still traveling through the Wildlife Refuge, but here the river was wider and prettier. It wasn't a really long trip to the Alligator River Marina, and we might have made it across the sound before it got bad out, but didn't want to risk it. The weather did say there was a big 'blow' coming.

We got to the marina right at the front side of the 'blow'. It was nasty out at the edge of the Albemarle Sound, where the Alligator River meets it. Waves were getting big enough to be a pain. We had to go through a lift bridge just before the marina, and had to wait there while the 3 boats that we had passed throughout the day caught up to us so we could all go through together. Honestly, there is ZERO point in rushing around here. They will make you wait anyway....lol. Our map shows us just circling around in one spot, waiting for them, til we could go under.

Once we got to the marina, we tied bow in to a finger dock. Dumb idea. You need to climb over the bow rail to step onto the finger (2 ft wide) dock.

If we had backed in, we could step off. Why they ask us to bow in is beyond me, but it was getting bad out so we just stayed put. For the next 2 days we dealt with the rain and the wind. I only got a few decent pictures because of it. There was a cute little restaurant on-site, that made burgers and fried chicken. It was a safe place to wait out the storm, and get ready to cross the sound.

Alligator River is also where we met Devon and Dolly on Leave it to Wally.