Category: Caribbean

We sailed out of our slip in Elizabeth City Wednesday morning with good wind for sailing across the Albemarle sound into the Alligator river where we lost cell phone coverage. We anchored in the Alligator River Wednesday night then motored for another 9 hours on Thursday to Goose Creek on the Pamblico River. I made a Cherry Pie enroute for our Thanksgiving dinner. Both days were overcast and cold. Friday motored down the Neuse River to Oriental, N.C. where we have a slip in a Marina. Good friends Paul and Emily picked us up and brought us to their home in New Bern for the night. Plenty of warmth and good company. After consulting the weather gurus we’ve decided to continue south off shore. We will leave Beaufort, N.C. Sunday morning and make our way down the coast. This will be faster than having to stop every evening to anchor and get us to warmer weather sooner.

It went below freezing last night. We woke up to frost on sail covers and beautiful eerie mist rising from the water.

We motored on to Elizabeth City, North Carolina and docked at the free city docks around 11 AM. Got out and walked to visitors center then had a seafood lunch. Finished some boat chores and enjoyed nice hot showers.

Yesterday morning as we were leaving Norfolk and coming to a bridge,  we were approached by a very fast, armed Coast Guard boat. The man at the machine gun was very polite and explained that they were escorting a large ship and asked us to move to a small cove area and wait for it to pass. About 15 minutes later as we motored around in circles with 2 other sailboats this big tanker passed under the bridge with another armed coast guard boat behind it and then we were on our way to the Dismal Swamp section of the ICW.

Entering Deep Creek lock. In the lock you have 2 lines around yellow bollards then the lock tender lets in the water to raise the boat to the next level.

Before entering the lock the lock tender, Robert very strongly suggested we turn around and go another way as they had a huge duck weed outbreak in the canal that was so thick it was stopping boats. Boats were over heating because the weed was clogging their water cooling system and or wrapping around the propeller. The worst was at the southern end of the canal. We decided to take the risk and went on through.

It was a beautiful sunny day, we saw bald eagles and great blue herons flying around. There was still some fall color on the trees.

There were patches of duck weed, some pretty thick, along the way. Olive Oyl motored through it without a problem.

As we got closer to the South Mills lock Doug called and spoke to it’s tender, Tammy. She told him the worst of the duck weed was in between the South Mills bridge and the lock (about 1/4 mile) she suggested getting through the bridge then gunning the engine to get to the lock.We did as she suggested. The duck weed definitely slowed the boat down but didn’t overheat the engine.

This is what it looked like approaching the lock. It looked like a thick grass lawn.Tammy told us it was 12 inches thick this summer and the frogs and turtles would walk across the top.

This lock lowers the boat down. You can see the thick duck weed on the wall as we were lowered.

We made it through. The duck weed was pretty much gone on the other side of the lock. We tied up to these posts and celebrated Doug’s birthday with a chili dinner. Going down the ICW was not our first choice but I am really enjoying the slower pace and the scenery.

We left our marina before sunrise yesterday. We had brisk winds to help us down the river and the bay. Chilly temperatures. We were both wearing multiple layers. We arrived in Little Creek at dusk where we got a slip so we could plug in the heat. Weather doesn’t want to cooperate for us to go off shore to Bermuda so it looks like we will be going down the east coast heading to Bahamas instead. We are waiting for a little more weather info later this weekend before making a final decision.