12 hour day white knuckle in the ICW

This is the part where we go on twisty turny waters and some canals.  We are white knuckle push button sailing on auto pilot and occasionally quickly switching to stand-by to avoid shallow water.  The sails come up and down as the puffy winds blow 5 to 35k.
  We are exhausted after these days because when either of us are at the helm we are constantly watching the depth sounder.  There is nothing worse than watching the depth go 10.8, 10.5, 9.9, 7.9 as the depths get shallower showing we are going out of the narrow channel and into the sides where a boat can quickly go aground in sometimes 1' or 2' places.
 We should be enjoying the ospreys in nests on top of every channel marker with little baby bird heads peeking up.  We should have looked for nature going through the Alligator River Reserve.
  We did sail in the areas we could North River, Albmarle Sound.  We tried to anchor at the side of the channel, but nothing was deep enough.  After the 12 hour day we motored dockside into Atlantic Yacht Basin, the place we stayed on the way down south after winning a free night here.  We arrived at 7:50 pm.  Late dinner of sausage, beans and rice. $1 a foot, frugal place to stay.  We are considering leaving our boat here to do the gargantuan job of the bright work (revarnish all the teak on the outside of the boat) a hefty sum and job.

  Colorful boat single handing by Mark from Amsterdam in Oriental Harbor at town dock.

The weather has been spectacular.   Temp 80 during the day 56 at night.  No rain during the days.