Washington & Oriental NC

We have time this year to do some side trips so we turned left off the ICW and headed up to Washington NC for a pig roasting festival. We made a quick stop on the way at Bath, whose most famous resident, briefly, was Blackbeard. This was a second home, away from his yacht which he kept at Ocracoke where he ran his import/export business. The governor of NC tolerated him and the citizens of Bath liked the cheap merchandise he provided local stores. Eventually other more law abiding citizens persuaded the governor of Virginia to send in an attack force and Blackbeard was killed in a battle at sea. Legend has it he had 30 wounds before he died. I don't believe the part about his beheaded body swimming three times around the ship.
As we approached Washington we were hailed by a man on condo docks. He wanted us to dock there, plug in to the electric and make ourselves at home. Turns out he was selling slips and condos, having the ribbon cutting ceremony the next day. He needed some boats as window dressing. We were all happy to oblige. We stayed four nights, enjoyed condo tours, a luncheon, a visit to the estuarium museum, an art show, as well as the festival. We had a great time visiting with our friends on Shangrila , whom we met years ago in the harbor at Solomons. It was hard to leave and tempting to test how long this free dock thing could last, but we headed out for Oriental on Monday. Lee got all the sails up and we moved right along down the Pamlico in the 25 knots of wind, my visions of 30 and 40 knots tempered by the fact that it was only a river. We anchored in lots of mud Monday night, having to put the anchor down twice, leading to our new anchor, now on order, a 66 pound Bruce. Lee's been wanting this for a long time.
As we neared Oriental we were able to check the cam (towndock.net) and see that there was a spot for us at the town dock. This is the first time the question of the real value of a free towndock has come up. Is it really worth it, if the pile drivers next to us pound all day and the seafood processing plant produces these odiferous smells. It is nice to be able to step off the boat at will, have folding bikes set up on the dock and go our separate ways without coordinating the dingy ride. But... So we have moved out to the tiny anchorage for the night and will head south in the morning. Who knows where our next free dock will be?

Elizabeth City, the dock, museum, downtown, our spot

We are bumping our way across Albemarle Sound right now. It looks like a good enough day, sunny with light winds and the temperature increasing by five degrees every hour, according to the weather report. But the water of the Albemarle is far from flat. It has the reputation of being the roughest inland water in the entire ICW. According to one of our guidebooks, four foot waves here are nothing like four foot swells in the ocean. They don't spread out like the 10 second ocean swells, but just get steeper and steeper due to the shallow depth. Today's 1 1/2 foot waves are a gift and we're sailing at about 5 1/2 knots.
The temperature still has a way to go-we woke up to 46 degrees, inside not out. We've slept warm enough with an electric blanket and sleeping bag, but taking showers is another story. Last Friday on the drive down to the Dismal Swamp Canal lock,where Lee left the boat, we went from snow flurries and 29 degrees in Ithaca to only 50 degrees and dropping at Norfolk.
The talk among boaters centered on how we're all staying warm, sounds like lots of baking going on. We've even had the empty oven on, basking in front of the open door. We're wearing lots of layers and I was very glad to replace the gloves I left behind in NY. Of the three routes south from Norfolk we always take the Dismal Swamp rather than Currituck sound or the ocean around the Outer Banks, much more of a sure thing...and it exits at Elizabeth City, a must see. The canal opened in 1805 and helped George Washington get his lumber to market. It doesn't appear to have changed since then, much shallower and narrower than the Erie Canal. Like most boats we bumped bottom and had the depth sounder pinging the seven foot warning quite a lot. We left the northern lock with four other boats after a morning walk and bake sale and arrived at the visitor center dock before dark. This rest stop is shared with the adjacent route 17 traffic, I doubt they appreciated the heated bathrooms as much as we did.
Elizabeth City is known as the "Hah-buh" of Hospitality, I can only hear it the way Fred Fearing said it in his daily greeting at the wine and cheese party. He was an octogenarian who, after his wife's death years ago, decided to take his bottle of wine down to share with the visiting boaters. This started a tradition that his Rose Buddies are still carrying on two years after his death, complete with a rose for all the ladies. It was held yesterday at the heated visitor center to a capacity crowd. No one wants to leave free docks with plenty of heated places to visit in a very lively little town. We enjoyed it all, coffee at the Colonial, brunch at a new place, a fish fry for $8, a free museum, gloves purchased at a dollar store, a library book sale. Some day we'll get to the dinner theater, but not to see the currently playing ""Where the Wild Things Are".
So now we're headed a few days down the way and a right turned detour off the ICW to a festival in Washington NC next Saturday. There was mention of 80 degrees later in the week so our plan to stay ahead of the cold still might come true.

We left our dock on Cayuga Lake on Sept 23 to begin moving the boat. Whether it's called moving the boat or cruising depends on weather and schedule. We had eight days to get the boat to NYC so I could hop on a bus and get back to Ithaca for the guild's quilt show, so we didn't get to be the relaxed cruisers we hope to be later in the trip. People ashore are amazed that we can get from Cayuga Lake to any port in the world on our boat. The Erie Canal and Hudson River are the link. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_Canal . We had to get through 26 locks to reach New York City, going up in each lock to Rome, NY and then down. The canal is a great bargain, a season pass for $75 gets us home in the late spring and out again the following fall, with free tie ups at walls adjacent to the locks, as well as some town docks. We have our favorite stops, Baldwinsville for a walk and visit to a small museum, Sylvan Beach with its fifties feel, amusement park, and Eddies for a fish dinner. Little Falls is another town frozen in time, maybe it's just that we don't see the strip malls and McDonalds from our watery route. We tied up after going through lock 17 at Little Falls, the biggest lock at 40 feet. Too bad there wasn't time to hike around Moss Island which has huge chimney potholes made over time by the swirling water, hard to believe you're in central NY. Having other priorities, we walked straight into town, past practicing rock climbers, to our favorite bakery, still in business. A quick browse at the grocery store left just enough daylight for dinner at Piccolo restaurant. Another learned skill in our boater life is to sit at the bar, if you want local knowledge/opinion. Early in our years of cruising I felt a little decadent sitting down to lunch next to the owner of mug #1 at a bar where patrons have their own mugs . Now I rationalize it as research. Chris, the bartender at Piccolo's calls the regulars buddy and the waitress mom. They all agree that Little Falls has the state's highest percentage of welfare recipients, a sentiment shared by most of these hard-hit canal towns. As with many of the canal towns, Little Falls evidences in the beautiful old houses the good years when industry flourished due to water power . By the second day we have the routine down pat . Call the lock keeper on the VHF radio or phone, wait for the green light, motor slowly into the lock, fenders down, grab the lines hanging along the wall with the boat hooks and then with gloved hands to keep the boat positioned as the water is let in or out. There isn't much turbulance and the line can be wrapped one turn around a boat cleat if extra force is needed. We only lost our lines once a few years ago when a gust of wind across an expanse of water when we were exposed above the lock walls pushed us beyond the end of our ropes. The little fishing boat locking through with us made sure to stay at the other end in future locks. The Erie Canal meets the Hudson River at Waterford where a left turn will take you up the Champlain Canal to Canada and a right turn takes you down the Hudson to NYC. The Hudson is an estuary rather than a river with tidal flow as far as Albany, so we try to move with the tides. Kingston, Hyde Park, West Point, the DIA museum at Beacon, Bear Mountain State Park where the Appalacian trail crosses the Hudson, there are more favorite stops than we have time for. One important stop is at Castleton, just past Albany, where do-it-your-selfers raise their masts. We radio any boat headed that way to organize a mast raising party. This year the couple on La Flaneuse and our friend's grandson who lives nearby made it do-able. A noose around the midpoint of the mast and attached to a hook hanging from the crane lifts the mast into place where it dangles until the rigging can be attached. The crane now is motorized with a hand-held push button control; I'm a little sad that my job turning the wheel to raise the hook inch by inch is obsolete. The wind picked up, everthing swayed, the mast got seated, the roller furling jib got attached, nothing landed in the water, and La Flaneuse got their turn. By dark we were both anchored across the river sharing stories and tea. They will head to St Martin and then Europe in the spring. We got the word from a boat ahead of us that our favorite NYC stop, a mooring ball at the 79th Street Boat Basin two blocks from Broadway, no longer accepts catamarans. Tarrytown Marina was our other option and only a block from the Metro North train station, and that only a 45 minute ride from Grand Central Station. We stayed two nights and visited with our city kids. Now I'm home recuperating from the quilt show and Lee is parking the boat today at the north end of the Dismal Swamp Canal near Norfolk. He'll rent a car, return his crew, work a few days, and then we'll head back. Mission accomplished: we can now enjoy the many ports of the ICW, hopfully staying ahead of the cold.