Belhaven, NC anchorage to River Dunes - a top marina in North America Mile Marker 173

Looking north from Belhaven, NC anchorage at dawn today.  Still still as stone and glossy as shiny paper.   We continued south through several more canals. At the Mayo fish processing plant we passed these two fishing boats with all their rigging.

This is our third year motoring south.  What a difference!!  We pass over 5' 8" and I hardly flinch because I know we're not going to get stuck on the mud. We draw 4' 7" that means our boat goes down 4' 7" from the surface of the water. The first year I was white knuckling every shallow spot, worried and anxious all the time.  Now I trust the boat and our careful tracking.  With redundant navigation tools: paper charts, Navionics on ipad, a depth sounder, Raytheon's radar at the helm, Active Captain reporting, a quick informational call to Tow Boat US when needed and most important of all our own eyes we avoid hazards all around us.  Yesterday three times I looked up and steered around an unforeseen:
1) stump in the middle of the channel,
2) partly submerged odd square object
3) random 4' stick pointing up out of the water
You never know.  Be alert.  When motoring outside we're avoiding huge barges and container ships. Inside the ICW it's little stuff that can cause big damage to the engine or hull.
At Alligator River Marina a guy next to us donned his wet suit to dive in and look underwater at his prop that had stopped working.  He bobbed up, and next thing we see him fixing his dinghy engine to his boat to use temporarily.

We are inside of land in fresh water opposite Cape Hatteras, NC where the beautiful Outer Banks are home to many a vacationer and where death has happened to many a ship that has tried to round one of the most dangerous areas of the seas.
 I will quote from Mark and Diana Doyle's On the Water ChartGuides.
Mason-Dixon Line of the Marine World:  We are south of the Mason-Dixon line but we just crossed he imaginary line called "the Mason-Dixon line of the marine world" by environmentalist and science writer Rachel Carson in her first book, The Edge of the Sea, a book about the estuaries surrounding Beaufort, NC. Rachel Carson was the scientist who later wrote about DDT and its close association with the near extinction of animal species that ingested it in her landmark book,  Silent Spring.
  Across Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras juts into the Atlantic.  The Labrador Current flows from the north, the Gulf Stream flows from the south.  The two currents converge at Hatteras, dividing the marine species into "northerners" and "southerners": cold-water species like cod, mackerel, and pollock to the north and warm-water species like Spanish mackerel, mullet and grouper to the south.

 Today's discussion: Should we push further south to Morehead City and out to sea for 3 days or stay in River Dunes?  We studied the weather and since there was a question we played it safe and stayed here.  We will read the weather updates in the morning and decide whether to stay in the ICW or go out to sea.  It takes 5 hours to get to the Beaufort City inlet at Cape Lookout --we'll study it then.
  Tonight we stayed here, one of the nicest marinas in America.

 stairway up the dinning room

 a unique chess set of labs as pawns and funny dressed up ducks as chess pieces.

A "private"dinner at the restaurant (we were the only ones there) with Claudette and Bruce from "Summer Wind." Mainers and New Hampshirites.  Feels good to be south in warm weather.