April 21: Elizabeth City

Sometime during the night, the boat stopped its constant roll and we woke up refreshed. Tom had picked up some fresh strawberries so we had a great breakfast. As we pulled out of the marina, we noticed that every piling had a visiting brown pelican resting atop. I was trying to steer and take a picture and still managed to miss hitting the dock.

Today we traversed the Alligator River/ Pongo River National Wildlife preserve. This waterway cuts through miles and miles of undeveloped land where the river was edged with cattails, marsh grass, shrubs, stark dead trees whitened by the sun, pine forests and even a blooming eastern red bud tree. We have not seen any animals in this stretch, but this area is beautifully primitive... just like how it would have looked when early settlers from England would have navigated the area. The Elizabeth City area was first visited in 1585 by the English who lived on Roanoke Island.

I wanted to get some pictures, but it was pouring down rain and we had all the windows zipped. It is amazing how much calmer the water and wind are today. The rain makes little splashing bubbles where it hits perfectly still water. I took a call from work this morning with acceptable cell phone reception and will attempt to get on line tonight to record our day on the blog. We spent the morning singing country songs, listening to Dixie 105.7 as we cruised along. Our timing was perfect as we arrived at the Alligator Bridge right at 12:30 and, along with 3 other boats made it through with the huge swinging arm just opened. Later in the day, we crossed the Albemarle Sound with lightening flashing in the distance. The water was rough, but not like yesterday. It is pretty cold today, so we are both wearing jackets that it seemed strange to be packing. On the way to Elizabeth City, we passed the US’s only dirigible plant, built during World War II, and now houses a blimp building firm still in operation. It was a huge grey oval dome on the banks of the Pasquotank River that you could see from miles away.

We cruised up the river in the rain until we reached Elizabeth City and docked at the city docks where we will be moored for the next couple of days. Tonight we discovered that we left my suitcase in Raleigh and our wonderful friend Ben is going to drive it up to us tonight so I will have something to wear in New York! We had a short walk around town and took some cool pictures of the water front. It was near this water front that Culpepper’s rebellion against the British government occurred in 1677. The Museum of the Albemarle is across the street and I am posting a picture of it.