A windy, rainy, cold day.  We slept late, drank mimosas (ish – cranberry juice instead of orange) with breakfast, and puttered in the main salon all morning, appreciating $3 shore power and an electric space heater.  After lunch, we donned… Continue reading

It’s the strangest thing to arrive somewhere, fall into bed, and wake during the night wondering, “Where am I?”  And the truth is, at that hour – I don’t know.  I haven’t been to shore yet to have any idea… Continue reading

We made it!  We’ve been wanting to make this side trip up the Albemarle for a long time.  Edenton was the Colonial capitol of NC for a short time (1722-1743) and we’d heard and read lots of positive comments on… Continue reading

Tired from bicycling yesterday, we were ready for a low-key day of swamp navigation.  We wanted to stop to top off our propane tank in South Mills and still arrive in Elizabeth City by mid-afternoon, which meant we had to… Continue reading

Morning in the Dismal Swamp Canal: cool, dim; birds singing in the stillness; the road noise of Highway 17 not yet pervasive.  It’s a dichotomy – this at-times jungle-like oasis paralleled at close quarters by a bustling highway. We ate… Continue reading

Let me start with the wee hours: there’s a parking garage that backs up to the Downtown Docks, and at 12:30am it became the scene of an hour-long step (as in step dance) practice and party.  We couldn’t see the… Continue reading

Up at 5am again to fly at dawn.  This was a leap of faith – the morning’s forecast wasn’t much different from yesterday’s, and yesterday’s was…energetic.  Not the kind of wind we’d like to sail 41 miles on to get… Continue reading

We broke down the riding sail at first light and were motoring out of Mill Creek as the sun was rising over the Eastern Shore. It’s prudent to wait to get underway until there’s enough light to see and avoid… Continue reading

There’s not a thing I can do to quell Nature’s temper; we wait.  The forecast for when the gale would begin to blow yesterday was startlingly accurate – at 7pm on the bells, a gust came whistling through.  It ramped… Continue reading