Carolina on My Mind

Our boat insurance policy has dictated our southern schedule by prohibiting us from cruising below Norfolk until after November 1^st  because of the risk of hurricanes.  With that date as our limiter, we stayed on in Hampton through the week, and again took a rental car excursion on Friday and Saturday to visit Yorktown, VA and to drive into Richmond to visit our dear friends Joe and Ellen.  The rental car company gave us a Fiat to drive, and we spent the weekend feeling like the Pope. 

The visit to Yorktown was another history lesson, as again we were fortunate enough to join a Park Ranger who turned the 1781 battle site into a riveting story of our nation’s birth.  Just how fortuitous events unfolded to allow a victory on that ground was realized only after spending the morning on tour and listening to the stories told.  Providence was surely a factor. 

After leaving Yorktown, we drove into Richmond and were wined and dined by Joe and Ellen as we celebrated Joe’s 60^th birthday. We spent our time discussing retirement and the next chapter in our lives.  A visit with them has always brought great joy to us, and this weekend was no different.

On Sunday November 1^st, against an overcast and drizzly day we left Hampton and headed into the Inter-costal Waterway (ICW).  We didn’t make it to mile marker 2 before we were turned back by a bridge closure.  They were using Sunday afternoon for maintenance.  We quickly went to plan B and headed into the High Street Free Docks in Portsmouth.  We then spent the afternoon walking the historic district.  Portsmouth’s residential historic district has a beautiful collection of homes dating from colonial, thru the revivals, Victorian, and early 1900s.  It’s just a fantastic lesson in architectural evolutions, and a well cared for neighborhood.

 

Monday the 2^nd , we were up in a driving rain pushing the boat south down the ICW to the Great Dismal Swamp Cut and North Carolina.  The run through the canal was beautiful though a little dangerous.  We  hit dead wood logs in the canal and a tree canopy overhead that almost took down our mast.  Who knew that you had to watch out for tree overhangs when you were in a boat – not an issues on the Chesapeake Bay.  The water is very different from the Bay also.  Where the Chesapeake is usually a beer bottle green, the water in the Great Dismal swamp was the color of Guinness, in the glass, a very dark brown, almost black, from the tannins created by all the decaying forest materials. It is very different cruising through a canal carved out in a swamp, but the trip was well worth it, complete with two locks and a visit at the Great Dismal Swamp Visitor Center.

Tuesday the 3rd we completed the beautiful passage through the canals in dry weather. After the second lock, the canal opened up onto the Elizabeth river which was just a very quiet, tranquil southerly flow, almost dreamlike, with some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve seen from the water.  Our arrival in Elizabeth City in the late afternoon was greeted first by a local welcoming committee of very entertaining and friendly local representatives and then by Whitt and Karen, good friends of our dear friends Christer and Camilla. We spent a wonderful evening with Whitt and Karen at a local Oyster House eating some of the finest fried oysters on earth. Presented in the very Carolina style of accompanied by slaw, hush puppies, and French fries (no one thought that Cece was going 10 months without french fries did they?).