Elizabeth City NC

We are at a bar enjoying some semi free WiFi in Elizabeth City NC (we felt obliged to order a couple beers.) Wow, our last post was in Maryland. Internet continues to be a challenge for us. My parents are letting me borrow their Broadband card which they use primarily in the summer. Thanks Mom and Dad! This should make blog posts a little easier.

So lets get everyone up to date. Here are the sailing days and a brief description of anything notable that happened.


Annapolis, MD The Last night in Annapolis we ate dinner on Sabbatical with Ben and Teresa. A dance party ensued. Stay tuned for pictures that Nicole is working on uploading as I type. We went separate ways after Annapolis.

Little Choptank River, MD... We sailed directly across the Chesapeake bay to the Little Choptank River on a cold rainy day. We tried to enter a small creek in the rain at night. Our better judgment soon prevailed and we decided to anchor outside the creek.

Solomons Island, MD... Solomons Island was just as crowded as our guide told us it would be. I think we have perfected the art of racing to an open spot and dropping our anchor before other boats can make up their mind.

Lookout Point, MD... Lookout point is the northern tip of the Potomac River which leads up to D.C. Not a very good anchorage, but we didn't want to make landfall in a small creek at night again.

Sandy Point Reedville, VA... We met up with Daphne and Elizabeth!!! We finally got the bikes out and the four of us road through rural Virginia. This is the first day I felt like we were in "The South." The accents are strikingly different in Maryland and Virginia. Nicole and I also celebrated out three year anniversary with a 2 mile dingy ride to the only restaurant in town. The last night in Reedville a large Aluminum Catamaran dragged anchor and hit our friend Ben's boat and almost hit us. No dammage, but very scary. The wind shifted 180 degrees and increased to 23 mph. We expected it, but I guess they did not. (The same catamaran is behind us tonight. Good thing we are on a dock.)

Fishing Bay, Deltaville, VA...We sailed with Ben and Teresa to Deltaville. We had 20 knots of wind behind us and Nicole handled the boat well surfing down the waves. Deltaville is an interesting place. Every store in town seemed to be related to boats. There were two West Marines, a sail loft, nautical consignment stores and hardware stores with huge boat sections.

Back Creek VA...Twelve hours of sailing to get here. We rafted up with Daphne and Elizabeth for dinner.


Norfolk, VA... Lots of motoring to get into Norfolk. We anchored downtown with a slew of other boats. It reminded me a lot of Baltimore. There is a food court right across from the boat and I had to sample the Chinese food. I love fast food Chinese food, or any Chinese food for that matter. There was also a free taxi called FRED (Free Ride Every Day.) It took us to and from the grocery store. In the morning I tried to pull up the anchor and had a really hard time. I took the anchor rode back to a winch on the mast and started cranking. Soon a piece of steel that was wrapped around our anchor line popped out of the water. I was able to get it off with some heavy lifting and some cursing.

Dismal Swamp Visitor Center... We finally made it into "The Ditch" or The Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway. We opted to take the scenic Dismal swamp route. This is where the picture at the top is from. It was skinny water, but we did fine with our 4.5 foot draft. When we got to the visitor center we were the fourth boat to raft up in our row. There was a bottle neck of cruising sailboats and it was interesting to meet some more people doing the same thing as us. The locking process was easier than I thought it would be, just make sure you monitor ch. 13 on the VHF.

Elizabeth City NC... It is known as the harbor of hospitality and we found out why when the Mayor took our docklines for us and invited us to a party. They really make an effort to attract boats here. There is free dock space downtown and a reception for the boats on Friday night. Last night we made our tastiest dinner to date. A grilled chicken and asparagus pizza with mozzarella and Brie. I think we are going to stay here tomorrow to do some more internet stuff like finding boat insurance, paying bills and fixing the typos in this post.