Nov 8-12:  Elizabeth City, NC to Oriental, NC

     We ended up being a large fleet of vessels at the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center - rafted three and four deep - and all of us set off in a parade down the swamp around breakfast time the next morning.  It was four miles to the next lock.  There were ten boats in all, and I think we filled the lock.

Waiting for the lock to open.

Filling the lock

     We all made it to Elizabeth City by noon, where all of us found space at one of several free docks right in town.  The wind had picked up and the weather was turning foul - a tropical depression offshore in the Bahamas had become Tropical Storm Kate, and we were feeling the edge of it with thirty knot winds and rain.  We were all happy to be tied up, although the wind was blowing right at us and made for a bouncy berth.  Dan and I went over to the restaurant nearby for the Sunday afternoon football game, and were surprised to find the featured game was the Patriots vs the Redskins, not the Carolina Panthers vs Green Bay Packers game.
     We stayed in Elizabeth City two nights waiting out the weather.  The people in town are very friendly and the city itself is filled with historical architecture, but there is a serious vacant building festival going on due to the re-routing of the highway.  This city is the county seat and features a large Federal courthouse as well as a county courthouse, and several attorneys have their offices here, but otherwise the waterfront town has little to offer the boaters who take up the free docks.  We did borrow courtesy bikes from the Welcome Center and we rode to the grocery store about two miles away for provisions, but otherwise there was little to do.
     The rivers and sounds are wide and shallow and all the guide books caution timing your passages according to the wind.  Tuesday dawned quiet and still, and we set off as the sun was rising to have a fairly quiet ride across Albemarle Sound and down the Alligator River to a pretty little anchorage off Tuckahoe Point.

Sunrise Tuckahoe Point, Aligator River

Entrance to the Aligator-Pungo Canal

     Wednesday we entered the Aligator - Pungo Canal and motored peacefully all day.  We are now in the main Intracoastal Waterway, and there is a small but steady stream of boats traveling South.   This is a beautiful section of the ICW - with marshes on both sides.  You can see the erosion from wakes, and most boaters are careful not to cause them, when the water is high, as it is right now. However, we have found that motor yachts tend to fall into two categories - those who are mindful of their wake and those who have acute cases of get-there-itis.  Fortunately there aren't two many in the latter group - who rudely pass without slowing down, leaving you rocking in their large wake - but Dan drew up a big sign to hang off the stern:  WILLIE DAWES WILL STOP FOR SLOW PASS  CH 16 + 13  Hopefully we won't have many more wakes from the rude motor yachts, and neither will the canal.

Immature bald eagle

Dan climbed the mast for shots of the marshes.

     We made a pit stop at RE Mayo, a fish processing plant at the end of the Aligator-Pungo Canal.  They rent overnight space at the docks for a cheap 40 cents a foot but we were there only to buy some fish.  They have a small store with marine supplies and fresh fish already frozen and sealed in blister packs and some of the friendliest people in North Carolina, which is saying a lot, as everybody we've met so far is very friendly.  We bought some shrimp and some flounder.  Tommie came out to sniff the air as we left, and she looked as if she were contemplating making a leap for the dock.  We didn't give her the chance.

     We continued into the Bay River and dropped the hook in Bear Creek, which our guide book described as "scenic, but quite buggy."  It was very quiet, and scenic, and buggy.  We have encountered our first mosquitoes!  I guess we really have arrived in the warm South.

Sunrise, Bear Creek

Shrimp boat, Pamlico Sound

     Thursday we again set off early.  Our destination today was Oriental, where Beta Marine is headquartered.  Dan intends to fix that alarm that started going off on our first trip to Rock Hall.  We have taken a spot at one of the free berth this town has to offer.  It's sunny and pleasantly warm and I am looking forward to exploring the area a little on foot while Dan takes the engine electronics apart.