Acorn To Arabella · video

What this video covers

Garmin replaced the failed GMI-20 at the nav station under a goodwill out-of-warranty swap while Arabella was anchored at Ocracoke, North Carolina. Steve reinstalled and reconfigured the unit along with the chart plotter, which had been isolated from the network during troubleshooting; the replacement powered up without errors. The crew also applied a collection of accumulated stickers to the dodger before departing.

Leaving Ocracoke's Silver Lake required navigating a narrow, shallow, shifting-sandbar channel at dead high tide. The crew chose to follow the ferry out but the ferry ran eight-plus knots and pulled away immediately. Once in Pamlico Sound, winds were higher than forecast and on the nose. The crew chose the inside route to Belhaven and then Norfolk over the Pamlico Sound outside route, adding roughly 20 miles over three days but avoiding shoaly areas they considered too tricky without local knowledge. Rain set in and persisted through the passage; the crew monitored VHF warnings about a submerged tree and a drifting dredge pipe near King Street Bridge. They transited at least one lock and multiple bridges to reach Norfolk. Aquamaps with the USACE overlay provided the most current channel position data through the ICW.

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