from the south mills bulkhead, it was into the south mills lock and then on to elizabeth city where we tied up at the free bulkhead next to the park. elizabeth city had a shindig for us that evening. it is really a very hospitable city with free dockage (no water or electricity though), free wifi, cocktails and hotdogs at 5:30 (so long as there are at least five boats at the docks), roses for the ladies, and only a small fee if you want to use their showers. i am sorry that we didn't get to stay longer but we will be back. at least tom and i got to walk around that afternoon a bit.
we were up at o'dark early the next morning in preparation for an extremely L-O-N-G day: 82 statute miles through the pasquotank river into the albemarle sound to the alligator river, into the alligator river-pungo river canal, out into the pungo river and then into the upper dowry creek to stop at the dowry creek marina.
the pasquotank river past elizabeth city had a ton of crabpots but we are from the chesapeake and we're used to that although the floats were painted black and hard to see especially with the rising sun. if we had left any later, it really would have been blinding! the sailboats in our fleet got to sail on a nice long reach until the albemarle sound which, i have to say, was not pretty that morning. it actually wasn't THAT windy but we were getting it from the beam which, on TADHANA, is not very pleasant. in any case, two hours of fighting that and finally into the alligator river and past the alligator bridge after asking for an opening. some of the boats from our fleet stopped before the bridge at the alligator river marina while the rest of us plugged on into the alligator river-pungo river canal which is, literally, a very wide ditch, not very interesting and with a spotty cell phone signal to boot. more boats from the fleet dropped off and anchored at mile marker 100 or so and only four of us actually made it all the way through the ditch, into the pungo river and up to the upper dowry creek where we were rewarded with a two-night stay at the wonderful dowry creek marina. mary and nick and their staff run a great place in very pleasant surroundings. plugged into electricity and water, i got gobs of laundry done (we were pretty dirty) and we had a nice little cocktail get-together in the lounge before everyone called it a day. except me, of course. i went to work until about 1:30 a.m. and then slept in the next morning. tom got TADHANA all cleaned up on the outside and then we borrowed the loaner car and ran off to the Advance Auto store to get some transmission fluid and that was tom's afternoon project while i went back to work. the rest of the fleet trickled in one by one and that evening, we all had a nice BBQ pulled pork dinner together at the marina lounge. it was early to bed as an early start was planned for the morning. early to bed for everyone else but me, of course. i don't sleep anymore, it seems.
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| blimp hangar - blimps are made in elizabeth city! |
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| blimp |
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| beginning of alligator river-pungo river canal |
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| it really is a ditch |
i have to add that when we borrowed the car to go to the auto parts store, we passed some cotton fields and and i made tom stop the car so that i could take some photos. i guess it's like when caucasians see palm trees and are totally fascinated. that was me being a tourist :)
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| cotton field looks like it snowed |
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| just needs to be cleaned up but looks like regular cotton balls |
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