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...