Voyage 2009: Chapter 5

8 Jun 2010, Back in our home away from home in Elizabeth City, 36 18.00 N/ 076 12.60 W

At 0615, we left our anchorage at Deep Point and headed up the Alligator River, the Albermarle Sound, and the Pasquotank River to Elizabeth City. SV Blackfoot left shortly after us but quickly passed us. Sad that we are so slow; not that Jule is slow but Capt. Bob is slow. However, we are 'green' as we go slow to conserve fuel.

The 'toy' depicted a trof over the Albemarle Sound though it did not show any weather on the Nexrad radar. That was a problem as we saw quite a few squalls coming through the area. Not only did we see the squalls but we saw a waterspout. We also heard on the VHF the report of at least 5 other waterspouts. Though the skies cleared the wind continued to increase out of the WNW. We continued to motorsail (more sail than motor) up the northern Albemarle and the Pasquotank.

Crab pots everywhere! What a pain! Nothing new! There is no safe channel up the Pasquotank so we needed to keep a proper lookout until we passed the blimp hanger when the pots decreased. We arrived at Pelican Marina at 1350 where Josh was there to catch our lines. Good seeing Josh and the gang. As usual the Pelican folks found us a perfect slip which we do appreciate.

11 Jun 2010, A few days in Elizabeth City, 36 18 N/ 076 12.48 W

We spent the rest of that day readying the boat for a bit of rest. We even used the air conditioning on the boat. How decadent! Mike of SV Defiance again offered the use of his car for our convenience. Of course, we accepted and filled a couple jerries, provisioned at the Food Fresh, and dropped off some old oil at Advanced Auto Parts. Sadly, we did not see much of the engaged couple (Josh and Lorelei) that we enjoyed during our last visit.

We were surprised that the 'free docks' were nearly full while we were in Elizabeth City as it was late in the season. Cruiseheimers had most of the cruisers north of the Carolinas. We walked to town to see how EC was weathering the economic downtown. This town was suffering greatly from (insert your favorite diatribe against George W or Barack H here). We enjoyed a great lunch at the Cypress near the 'free docks'. Today we are readying Jule for the trip to Hospital Point tomorrow.