Location: North River, NC
Dad and I suffered through our first frost last night. Our cabin heater had broken a few days ago. Luckily we picked up the parts to fix it in Portsmouth so we were cozy during the night but the morning was freezing. The changing weather is a constant reminder and stimulus for us to travel faster south. Consequently we were one of the first boats to leave the dock to travel down the Albemarle & Chesapeake Canal. We could have traveled on the Great Dismal Swamp Canal and bypassed the locks entirely but I've seen what happened to Snow White, plus the Dismal Swamp Route is a tad longer (but seriously who came up with that name, surely not the builders).
The Albemarle was full of wildlife and a handful of inconvenient bridges. In the early morning steam rose up from the water creating a mystical fog over the marsh, I wondered whether we hadent taken the Dismal Swamp by mistake.
In the afternoon we were joined by a fleet of sailboats all on the same course south.
Soon enough we were crossing the Virginia border into North Carolina. Unfortunately we didn't start off on a good foot in the new state.
Shortly after crossing the border the channel became so narrow that we ran aground, the boat in front of us was stuck also. After the engine failed to pull us out Dad hopped in the dingy with our anchor to stick in deeper water and pull the boat out. We caught the three boats behind us on the radio, warning them of our predicament. Watching them try to navigate the water was very comical. The boats moved as if each captain was saying "no you go first." Each boat hit aground at least once but was able to motor off. They eventually made it through. After a short shouting match Dad and I got off the shoal as well, leaving one last boat stuck in the mud (also the boat that was in front of us, the first to go aground). The joint task of motoring while pulling on the anchor was actually fairly easy, it was the communication from bow to stern that was hard. We'll have to work on that or maybe get matching headset radios for Christmas - no joke I saw an older couple wearing them.
After the mishap we sped off toward the end of the canal. On our way we spotted Matt and Diane on their boat Teshtego & we anchored a short ways away, planning to depart together in the morning. Setting our sites somewhere up the Alligator river.
Spotted: two bald eagle friends
No comments:
Post a Comment