Merry Month of May

5/27/13

Good Morning Blog Readers!!
May has been a whirlwind. We started May in the Chesapeake.  What a beautiful area with many rivers to explore.  We really could have spent 6 months of our year right here. Many quaint little towns, lots of history, and fun places to ride our bikes.  Our enjoyment of the area though was muted by our excitement of the fact that we were going to see Claire for her boot camp graduation.

Winnie and Jack took over the boat for  us in Kent Narrows, MD, we gave them our latest advice, since we are still learning about docking and boating, then took their rental car and headed south!!

Five hundred miles to Parris Island to see our Marine.  Parris Island graduates Marines 42 weeks of the year with classes of around 600-900 people.  Is that incredible? Wednesday is family day where you learn about the Island and some of what your son or daughter went through during boot camp. Thursday the new marines get "leave" from 1000-1500 (military  time) to see their families.  Friday at 0900 they graduate and are dismissed from their drill instructors!!! It is an overwhelming experience to see all of these young, beautiful people in formation and realize that they have all taken the oath of Honor, Courage, and Commitment and are willing and committed to work, fight and even give their lives for our country.  Claire was just beaming and so proud to be able to now call herself a Marine.  I was most worried that Claire would lose her joy of life and sense of humor after the work-over the drill instructors give but she is still a stitch and joy to be around, she just has a lot more material to work with!!

We then headed to see my Mom in Anderson, NC for Mother's Day.  The visit was short but very sweet and Claire also got to see my Mom's sister Yvonne whose husband, Paden had encouraged Claire to join the Marines before he died two years ago. Yvonne was beside herself when she saw Claire in her uniform.  Claire did a lot of eating and sleeping and healing from her "kennel cough" I called it, that I am sure she acquired from living with 63 other girls. I will just brag here...Claire graduated as a squad leader (one of four), as expert rifleman(the highest you can achieve), as Molly Marine (your platoon votes who represents the most ideal marine) and promoted meritoriously as a Private First Class scoring 295 and 296 out of 300 on her physical and knowledge testing. She is very happy.  She headed back to the boat with us and we showed her what our lives are like now. 

We turned the car back over to Winnie and Jack after a 24 hour visit with them and then continued our journey North. Annapolis, the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal, Delaware Bay and on to New Jersey!!!!! Can't believe how quickly this section has gone.  We have had wonderful visits with my siblings along the way and tomorrow we meet up with Geoff's brother!! A big thanks to my sister Nancy and b-in-law Julius for getting Claire to the train in Wilmington, Delaware with her tons of gear and a lunch bag, for her trip to Camp Geiger in NC for a month of combat training.  More later about the military and our fun experiences in New Jersey.

Pamlico and Abemarle Sounds

I am falling a little behind on the blog postings, so I will catch up with one that covers a couple of weeks.....

We decided to venture away from the charted safety and security of the AICW and head to a less travelled destination- The North Carolina Outer Banks.  The Outer Banks have very familiar names; Nags Head, Hatteras, Kitty Hawk, Ocracoke. We decided to take advantage of a very calm day of weather and leave the AICW, cross Pamlico Sound- an open water trek of about 25-30 miles- and head to Ocracoke.

As forecast, the weather quickly deteriorated once we arrived Ocracoke, the winds stayed 25 knots plus for the next four days (although it would have been safe to leave the island and venture across the Pamlico Sound, it would have been very uncomfortable) so we stayed put in our wonderful little anchorage at Silver Lake, met a wonderful couple (who soon leave on their Hallbergh-Rassy 40 sailboat headed to Bermuda, the Azores, the UK, and then Spain ), walked miles on the windswept island, drank great coffee every morning at the local coffee shop, and met the locals.

Once the weather final let up, we shot back across the Pamlico Sound, reconnected with the AICW, motored the AICW to Bellhaven where we docked for the night at a free city dock,  Nice town with a very nice city dock, free water and electricity (very rare, so far) and several other cruising boats who shared their adventurous tales.  We used our bikes to stock up on food, hit a book store, and explore.

Leaving Bellhaven took us up the Alligator River and the Pungo Canal to the next sound, The Albemarle Sound, another open and sometimes gnarly body of water when the wind kicks up from the wrong direction; we hit it on a reasonably good day, there was some chop but nothing to worry about.  We stopped for the night at another free city dock at Elizabeth City NC, where we found another delightfull town with a very friendly atmosphere.  We once again cracked out our bikes and explored the town,  stocked up on supplies and had a great evening.  

On to the DISMAL SWAMP.......

The AICW splits just north of the Albemarle Sound, providing a choice to boaters.  The fast boats take the Virginia Cut, the slower boats take the Dismal Swamp route.  We took the Dismal Swamp route and it was anything but dismal.  The canal is very narrow, often trees overhang into the canal, in some places two boats would have a difficult time passing.  It is slow going, but we enjoyed every mile, the route has two locks which we had to transit but it was good practice, remembering how to control OSPREY in a lock chamber.  We spent hours chugging along through the dense trees, looking for woodpeckers- I bet Patty we would see a Pileated Woodpecker (Woody Woodpecker) but I lost the bet.

Somewhere between the first and second lock we had a surprise call from Dave Smith, who it turns out was visiting family in Newport News VA, -which was so close, he and his lovely wife Carol drove down late Saturday evening to visit us and we stayed up until the wee hours catching up on news.  They spent the night with us and after a hurried cup of strong coffee, they hurried back to Newport News at 7 am the next morning.

Next chapter-  Norfolk and the end of the AICW and the beginning of the Chesapeake.  Coming soon...