Elizabeth City, Alligator River, Albemarle Sound, Pungo River

We've made a lot of progress in the past 3 days - amazing what you can do when the weather is right :-)

The Visitor Center is roughly right at the NC border. From there we went to Elizabeth City for Saturday night, down the Pasquotank River in the Albemarle Sound, across the sound, and into the next section of map, following the one immediately below.

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Section 2 of maps! Anyway, from the Albemarle Sound down the Alligator River for Sunday night, and then down the Pango Canal (means "dust" in Indian), down the Pango River, across the Pamlico River, and then just south of the river for tonight. Tomorrow we will stop at Oriental NC to pick up mail and then another 10 miles or so before stopping for the night. The plan is to spend Wednesday night in Moorehead City/Beaufort. That will take care of the inner NC ICW route and put us on the coastal portion of the ICW. yeah!

When we left the Visitors Center on Saturday it was COLD. 31 degrees of cold. Icy decks. But on the bright side, it made a beautiful fog just across the top of the water. It was a nice day actually, and warmed up into the upper 40's. This isn't us - it's the only other boat we've seen on the waterway so far.

This section of the Dismal Swamp Canal was beautiful, filled with cypress knees rising out of the water. Very swamp-ish looking....

We passed through the South Mills bridge and lock on the way to Elizabeth City. My mom lived in South Mills as a young woman, when she was dating my now 90 year old dad. Still a small town.

Elizabeth City was nice, but too cold to do a lot of exploring. We walked around the waterfront area, visited the very nice Museum of the Albemarle, ate great seafood at the Economy Seafood Diner/retail store, and retreated to the relative warmth of the boat. My dad grew up in the county around Elizabeth City and was nostalgic about our visit there. He had hoped to join us there, but unfortunately it didn't work out this time.

Another cold, icy morning, but this time it warmed up into the upper 50's - much better! Nothing too unusual this day. The water was so still that we had perfect reflections in the swamp of the trees and sky. Luke's the photographer here.

Today we made a lot of progress. We did see golden eagles, a couple of pairs. One pair fished the water right beside the boat, not 10 feet away from us. They were magnificent.

It was warm today, in the upper 60's!!!!!! What a nice change! We were down to jeans and tee shirts in the boat - much better than thermal lined jeans and sweatshirts. Tomorrow should be warm, too, but possibly rainy. We have figured that we need to get to the GA border before the weather changes significantly. I'm ready :-)