Getting Ready For the Dismal Swamp

Day 235: Saturday, April 27, 2013

Port to Port: Elizabeth City, North Carolina

Underway: 0:00 am Motor Off: 0:00 pm Miles Traveled: 0 Stayed At: Free Dock

Mile 51 to Mile 51: I was up early so I quietly worked on the blog while Cindy got her beauty sleep. The city provides free internet at the docks here. This is definitely a must stop place on the Great Loop.

We met and chatted with several other neighbors at the docks here – most are snowbirds heading north to their summer homes. They have generously shared their local knowledge about neat places to stay in the Chesapeake. We are looking forward to exploring a lot as we gradually head north.

We needed to restock our fruit supply and get a few essentials so we were going to hike to the store but Frank and Juanita on Seaquel (a mast free catamaran) loaned us their bikes to ride to the grocery store. We like to walk but biking takes a lot less time and it wasn’t very scenic along the main highway – just a long stretch of strip malls and fast food restaurants. After our errands, we decided to check out the Albemarle Museum to learn a little more about the history of this area. It is housed in a nice new building just a few blocks from the wharf. This area has a colorful history – from the original native American’s to pirates to war to the tourist era today. The area is now trying to become a regional tourist destination although the economy is heavily dependent on the local coast guard station – the largest in the continental US – and government services like public schools and the courthouse.

We got together with Roger and Dorothy on Slow Churn for dinner – Dorothy made an amazing homemade pizza and we made strawberry margaritas and brought a fruit plate. We enjoyed some hilarious stories of their many adventures traveling up and down the ICW – there is a reason their boat is called Slow Churn (it has something to do with all the shoals and mud flats which seem to have a magnetic attraction to Roger). We finished the night with a brutal game of Doodle Dice. They had never played but that didn’t stop Dorothy from creaming us in her first game. We will hopefully get one more night to visit along the “ditch” before they pass us one last time and head home to New Jersey. We will miss them.

Just to give you an idea of how our fellow boaters view us and our little boat, I have to share a little clip of a recent email we received from Slow Churn:

“As we have been steadily moving north, we have been stalking another mid-western couple on a boat. This time it is a sailboat, but they have lot of mid western traits. The woman is named Cindy, a common Midwestern name,( I guess), and the man is named Mike, (a four letter name like Bill), and they live in Minnesota, up near Michigan, (I think). The key trait is that they are real nice people.

Although we pass them on the water, they always end up ahead of us 2 days latter. They are in a 22 foot sail boat with a 8 HP engine, so they only go 5 MPH, but they run for 10 or 12 hours a day, sometimes into the night. We have watched them buzz by, while we are tied up at a marina, watching Judge Judy on TV, just before our dinner.

They actually stopped for a 2 days, here in Elizabeth City, so we all went out to eat last night and we invited them over for Dorothy’s home made Pizza tonight. Mike brought a bunch of stuff to make fruity drinks, along with a blender to make them in. We don’t have a blender on our boat, and they don’t have electricity on their’s, but with everything together we made some good drinks to go with the Pizza. With some luck, we will run into them again, while they make there way up thru NY to Canada.”

Just so you know, Cindy and I laughed so hard while reading this we were crying. The people you meet on the Great Loop are definitely special.

Aurora

Sailing the Seas

Getting Ready For the Dismal Swamp

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