Unexpectedly lovely

Unexpectedly lovely   ...   Sunday 21^st October 2012

A string of five sailboats left the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center (and highway rest area) this morning headed to the lock at South Mills.  We emerged from the lock (like a row of ducklings) into the Turners Cut.  Here the depths were greater and the waterway widened.  Turners Cut seemed to traverse an actual cypress swamp and was very beautiful.  In a few miles, we entered the Pasquotank River.  The river was fairly narrow at this point and meandered through many turns. Much of the surface of the water was covered in bright green duck weed (at least that’s how we think of it), adding to the sense of being in a swamp.  This was everything we had been expecting of the Dismal Swamp Canal and hadn’t found.

After passing through a couple of bascule (opening) bridges, we arrived at Elizabeth City, NC.  The famous ‘free’ docks seemed to be completely full!  However, a few boaters waved us on to a facing dock further along.   A few of the sailors who had come down from the Dismal Swamp, kindly helped us to tie up the boat.  Then Mike helped bring another boat in to tie up behind us. It was still early afternoon on a lovely day in a great town.  The local supermarket provides a shuttle to take boaters from the docks to the store and back.  We took advantage of this service to get some provisions.  [If we’d really been using our heads we would have got some beer while we had transportation.]  Later, we even managed to find a sports bar showing the Pats game—a nail biter with a happy ending.  What a great day!

Gloria

p.s. thanks to Dave Cosgrove we now have the basics of a Google map showing our position. We will update this with our new positions and retrospectively add in our previous stops

Map of locations

Lock Side Reflections - South Mills Lock

Motoring the upper Pasquotank River

The Upper Pasquotank River

Ripples from the wake