32. Atlantic Yacht Basin to Coinjock

Woke up to clear blue skies. Very uplifting though it was chilly and breezy – light jacket weather. Today’s goal was to get halfway to the Alligator River swing bridge hoping that when I actually get there the bridge will be a normal opening schedule, that is “open on request”.

About 8 miles south of the Atlantic Yacht Basin was the days only potential bottleneck, another spring bridge opening on the hour and half hour. My timing was not the best and I had to hold station in front of the bridge for 15 minutes til its 10am opening. NBD. The rest of trip was uneventful down the ICW without much of interest to catch ones eye. But I did need to keep my eyes open though as I was in crab pot territory and there were many miles of them. Very hard to see their little floats right at or near the marked channel edges especially with a rising sun in your eyes and floating in shimmering choppy waters. It doesn’t help when the floats are mostly either black or white. Hasn’t anyone thought of flourescent red, pink, yellow or lime green? Maybe some little flags attached? A 2-3” horizontal black float just isn’t very visible in certain conditions but having one of their lines wrapped around your propeller will just ruin your day. Thankfully the gauntlets were successfully run.