We got Robert and he was in a great mood (he always is).
We had a perfect lock/bridge experience. However, we were a bit
concerned about the crowd of boats that left yesterday and those locking
with us. We went all of 7 nm to a nice quiet dock on the east side of
the canal. We were a little surprised with the 'beware of bear' signs
so we let our lines out a bit. Nice place.
We left the pier at 0800 to guarantee
that we would make the 1100 opening at South Mills bridge/lock. We did
and headed down one of our favorite waterways, the Pasquotank River.
The duck weed was not bad this year and there was not much debris in the
water either. We arrived at the Pelican around 1600. Mike, Diesel, and
Frank were there waiting for us. Earle had already set sail heading
South. Billie invited us to a play (Exit Laughing) at the Arts of the
Albermarle, we attended the City's Homecoming Parade, and we went
shopping. Jim and Karen came by from OBX just to say hi. Great times.
Left EC at 0800 heading for the Pungo
Canal. Wind and waves were perfect in the lower Pasquotank but the crab
pots were really a pain. Many of the floats were cut small to get more
floats for the dollar. Bridge tender at the Alligator Bridge was great;
the old grumpy guy must have finally left. We anchored at Bear Point
and the headwaters of the Aligator River where we were witness to one of
the best sunset ever.
Next day we left at 0730 headed for
R.E. Mayo in Hobucken where we always stop for a tie up and the best
local scallops. We stayed the night and today we were blessed with
great vistas of the Bay River as the fog was lifting. Today was another
calm morning with little wind and flat seas. We passed Oriental around
1100 and decided that we should head up to New Bern.
And so we did. We continued for another four hours until
we reached the Route 70 bridges guarding the south flank of New Bern.
We got reservations at Bridgepointe Marina on the Trent River. Great
place with friendly staff, great docks, and inexpensive dockage. We
even saw Jerry, an old marina mate from Mona Black.
Today, we had visitors from Dick and
Judy of St. Jude and coastal station KNC. We try to see them whenever
we are in the New Bern area. We hear them on the SSB almost every day
as they keep track of the cruiser community in the Western Atlantic.
They do a great job on Cruiseheimers and Doo-Dah networks. We also saw
Tom and Sandy of SV Anania who are also active on Cruiseheimers. Last
but not least we had dinner with fellow Chesapeake Bay-ers, Jaren and
Nancy of MV NanSea-D. Busy couple of days.
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