Pics

Pic 152 - Sign in Deep Creek Lock
153 - S Eliz River
154 - Norfolk

That's it for this one

Hi-
This leg of the voyage is over - we rented a car in Norfolk, loaded the kayak and drove up to DC to visit the folks and regroup. V had had enough - she gave it her all till it was all gone, and when she said it was time to do something else, well...that's what we're doing. She said she felt like she aged 10 years in 2 weeks, and so had I...she said. I don't see it that way, but it takes 2. We're disappointed, but...hey - what the heck. I'll have an opportunity to get my bones back in their sockets and we're planning on heading back to fresh water and do some of the rivers running across this continent - kayaking in salt water is a stretch of patience and endurance and tolerance of inhospitable conditions like salt and staying too far off the coast to catch wind and there are too few good places to stop and stand or camp - we'd get in the boat at 9 am and get out at 6 or 7 pm... it seemed we were working to get somewhere and enduring where we were, ever struggling to move on. Rivers will carry us and life will be easier.

So yesterday we got in the Deep Creek lock at 8:30 (George the lockmaster is another saint), after I discovered my Brunton Solaris 26 watt charger had gone belly-up, as had previously my West Marine VHF250 radio charger and before that the DeLorme PN-20 GPS charging cable...and then the GPS lost its program and there was nothing to be done but resort to road maps and go lo-tech...actually a relief after all the wiz-bang tech stress.
The night before the Deep Creek police blasted us with light in our tent on the dock and after we explained our situation they were sufficiently amused to say it was OK to stay...that afternoon in Deep Creek we had hit a Chinese Restaurant and Food Lion and got a box of wine, tortillas, pnut butter, powdered milk, a couple of cans of vegetables and some granola bars...our rice and bean supply was great...oh yeah - after we used the Coleman stove the first time we couldn't get it running all the next day, so we gave it to a kid at the dock.
Below the lock the water was brackish, and we paddled N up the S Branch of the Elizabeth River and through miles of the maritime industrial zone, where they dismantle ships into hills of steel, where old docks and pier stumps and big rusty ships with flags from who knows where were tied up idle, doing who knows what, and barges and tugs and a few pleasure boats on the "main" Intracoastal Waterway met the few boats of the Dismal Swamp ICWW, old steel railroad bridges raised, and car bridges, I-64 over a tall bridge and other roads across draw bridges that didn't need to raise for us...the wind dead calm and the temperature climbing in a hot sun, on up to Portsmouth where a police boat didn't answer our greeting wave and where drydocks had ships getting maintenance and under the bridge I used to pedal across back in the winter of '77 or so to get to the aircraft carrier...it charged a bicycle a dime to cross, but I usually skipped the toll...
And all the Navy ships in drydock or tied up with lots of security...watchmen with guns and friendly workers waving and hollering...the sun getting warmer and a little breeze now and then...on into the main Elizabeth River, past downtown Norfolk and up the docks and newer construction, past the Norfolk Southern RR coal docks and on up the shore until we got near the Lafayette River with the USS United States (fastest Atlantic crossing at one time) idle ahead, with some big swells coming through us from passing boats and Hampton Roads getting closer and the temperature climbing and us paddling and sweating in the salt air and me jabbering trying to keep V calm as we saw Hampton Roads ahead - she saw nothing good ahead and said it was time to end, so we did. She cried a little, but it was a good cry. We went to the Norfolk Yacht Club and pulled up the kayak and I got a rental car and we drove up to see DC to see my folks, and now it is on the grass and V did laundry, and now we're looking at French Creek in W PA which flows into the Allegheny River and then the Ohio. Looks like we'll rent another car and head up there next week.
We learned that Pamlico Sound NC is a wonder of nature with diverse birds and water creatures and trees and grasses and rivers and creatures of the land...and don't forget great humans doing the best they can to help and enjoy every moment...Albermarle Sound, the Dismal Swamp...wow. We had a great leg on this ongoing trip, and we'll now go somewhere else and see what we see.

Deep Creek town dock campground...for want of better

tram taking kayak over dam to Lake Drummond...interesting how this is the only lake I know of above a swamp, which is in turn above sea level.

Deep Creek VA

12 miles paddle from a chilly morning at Lake Drummond to Deep Creek at 3:30, tired after a light cold sleep, we're just above the lock out of the canal to the real water below and N to Hampton Roads urbania, as seen from the water side. Back in the swamp there ain't no skeeters, the turtles don't all jump off the logs, even a great blue heron stood thigh-deep and let us pass without flying. Another moccasin crossed the water, and the dense green leafy forest of brown pure fresh water smelled like heaven...or as close as we got so far. Still, 12 miles is a while to stroke and V is especially weary - and she has some sort of concern about going through the city with ships, boats and the world's biggest Navy base...her main sweat is the weather as we cross to Hampton, but the forecast is ideal - wind S 8-11...who could worry about that? We'll make it over and then find another place to hide. Now we're camped on the dock above the lock, awaiting the 8:30 am opening to move on - we don't think we're in a legal spot, but if sailboats can tie up to the town dock, why can't we set up a tent on the town dock? Sound like an arguement? We may try it out.

Pic a

Flora and Fauna

Day 15…Wednesday May 28, Lake Drummond Campground, Dismal Swamp

Flora and Fauna

The intent was to document what we saw and smelled and heard, but it has been an exercise in digression, wallowing in self indulgence, a sickening swill.

All our itty bitty aches and pains, no matter how great they may seem are nothing at all in the midst of a wild and hostile real world…no quarter asked of given by the wild creatures.

Somewhere out there in the NC waters we spent a day sliding over a million, maybe in Pamlico Sound …long-tentacled red and white stingers that we avoided – but that sort of thing has been everywhere and this blog has overlooked the obvious.

Ospreys aren’t here in the swamp, but they have been plentiful everywhere else, welcome company on remote and inhabited coast…crab pots were all over the place and posed some challenges to steer among while trying to hold a fine line with/against the wind and seas…so there must be a fair number of them. We haven’t seen much for geese, except most notably families living/pooping on well-manicured lawns…except the family in the morning quiet in the Alligator River Ditch. I may have seen a rangy red wolf for a moment along the Pamlico Sound – nothing wild sticks around long, and we’re don’t see the real creatures long enough to snap a picture.

Last night we listened to some weird sounds here in the remote Dismal Swamp…and it ain’t dismal – hardly any bugs, fresh water/air…a great break. Bobcats were conversing and yowling in the night, and massive tree toppled over, and today I took the tram over into Lake Drummond and watched a few great blue herons fly off and got lost on the vast expanse among the trees in the wildlife refuge. An otter and I shared curiosity as it tooled along among the cypress trees and dived for edibles, rearing up to check me out and then disappearing, peering around a tree and diving down to travel further...we ran into each other a couple of times. I got a picture of it, but it does no justice. The cypress trees ringing the lake are worth the trip, more lush than I’ve ever seen. Goldfinches are plentiful around here, and the USACOE dam attendant’s poodle discovered a fresh turtle egg nest – it is safe so far.

The pelicans were many further south and there were only a few in Albermarle Sound. Fish splash everywhere up to 1’ long leaping from some bigger fish. Not too many kingfishers overall.

So there is wildlife, and we are lucky to catch fleeting glances before the critters get the heck away from up. The ospreys with their nests let us know their disdain when we’re far off and get more vocal as we pass by, trying to not disturb them…and sometimes we hear the young speak up from within the nests – their voices haven’t gotten high and piercing like the old folks – they kinda croak baby talk.

Back to self–indulgence…supper was fire-cooked oatmeal and a can of mixed vegetables after a day with a can of tuna with mustard and crumbled tortillas and crackers and we’re getting to the bottom of our second 5 liter box of wine – we take the bladder out of the box and protect/pack it in a cloth bag because it takes less room, and a taste is great in the evening. Vitamins, ibuproferin and Reishi Mushroom capsules help us maintain perspective. A Tylenol PM is sometimes good in the sleeping bag. The water in the swamp in delicious and warm, and we saw a couple of water moccasins yesterday swimming across the canal. I feel very clean with the fresh water.

The USACOE guy, Allen, comes to work at 8:30 and is supposed to leave at 4, but it was a slow day and he left the place to us. He is a National Weather Service Cooperative Weather Observer and has a temperature box and rain gage that measured 0.62” rain last night into this morning…we slept through some of it, and today it probably didn’t hit 70, and we’re wearing long underwear etc to rest and strengthen because we take off tomorrow morning – we’ll go to another campground just before the lock that’ll take us back down into saltier water at Deep Creek into the Elizabeth River into Portsmouth and Norfolk, into the James River across the 3 mi Hampton Roads (where the Monitor and Merrimack slugged it out…and then Chesapeake Bay, where we plan to move up the west side with some shelter from west winds and especially big waves…it has to go better than NC, but we wouldn’t trade that time…well, I trade some to get the GPS and VHF radio charger after they succumbed to too many soakings.

I asked V if we were having fun and she said, “Well, we’re part of nature, and nature is real…we’re like being kids again.” I guess that’s fun.

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Pic1

Day 14

Day 14…Tuesday May 27, Lake Drummond Campground, Dismal Swamp

I suggest you give this a listen:

http://www.gdradio.net/gd.asx

2 weeks since we took off like a fool at the beach who runs and jumps into water 6” deep, but in our case there was no way to stick in our toe first. And only a fool would think there is a way to prepare physically, because it is at least as much mental, using our bodies as vehicles and distancing ourselves from the protesting muscles and managing the pain in a continual roller coaster ride.

The last 2 days have been hard work.

Yow!
And we ain't talkin basketball.
Dismal Swamp, Lake Drummond, USACE Dam Campground deserted except V&me...We paddled most of the way yesterday fm 5 mi below ElizCity and all day today to here and while the rig is slick, it weighs 500lb us included.
We spend most of our time involved in intense thought, as we're involved in intense exercise, that being pulling water...actually pushing with the other arm, alternating with the same balance of a bike rider, making minute adjustments to the path with a harder stroke, a different length...a jolt of water to alter inertia of that 500lb slider with a flat v bottom and hard chine (saved V from flipping at campground when the boat drifted off the dock and she found herself in 2 places at once - the tilt of the boat could have only been done on a hard chine...I think that means the sides of the boat are nearly vertical against the flat v - it'll accommodate a fair tip without going over - that would take a lot.

So, as we talk, the talk is intense as well, about the exercise/wind/wave issues at hand, and while we're stronger, we're trashed after the last 2 days of pulling/pushing and sliding along at 1-2.5 mph...shoulders in shocking pain... while at the same time holding about 12 other conversations, able to pick up where we left off...trying to get better acquainted, testing limits...it is more intense, rewarding and dangerous than the other endeavors, and the scenery's pretty good and gives us this opportunity to chat.
Over the past 2 weeks, it has been about 50/50 paddle/sail, and both have their own good/bad, but given the choice, we'd usually let the wind run us ahead…especially after the last couple of days.

V has a policy: after soaking/cooking/eating beans(turtle)&rice the day before, she won’t eat them for the next evening meal – she fears indigestion or worse. I have no policy.

But in celebration of 2 weeks (we ain’t celebrating – it’s recuperating), we fired up our one burner liquid fuel Coleman stove for the first time ever – we never tried it out after getting it at WalMart a month ago and whacking my feet against the metal fins of the stove for about 10 days before V suggested I relocate it to a less painful location, so I had developed a considerable enmity…it works great! for rice and turnip greens, and V is talking about hot coffee and oatmeal for breakfast – ever, and now we have all the comforts, including a screen-enclosed picnic room with electricity! at this Corps of Engineers Dam campground with only us here…nobody for at least 2 miles in the heart of Dismal Swamp – skeeters and other flies are surprisingly tame – you want skeeters you go to Hobuken NC, a humid bracky ICWW ditch…here in the middle of the swamp the air is fresh and the water pure brown clean. The dam here is where the water from higher Lake Drummond is parsed into the Dismal Swamp Canal, which is dammed a the N and S ends by locks, which in turn drop the water level for boats to sea level…as in Pasquotank River NC in our case this morning or, in a couple of days the lock at Deep Creek on the way N to Norfolk.

Yesterday after we left the PTboathouse we sailed/paddled 5 mi across a 10-15 SW wind up the W side of the Pasquotank R– nice stretch of coast and a nice place to live and got to Elizabeth City yesterday around noon and went in search of…anything, and left an hour later with a couple of cans of tuna and crackers and granola bars as a wild one/day extravagance. OK town, and the best place to live we saw so far. We also sat in a sandwich shop and ate sandwiches…but all the time we were headed back to the boat to shove off and move on.

Above ElizCity the river turns into a river instead of a bay, twisty and winding into the N, except it was party time for the high school kids in their ski boats and jet skis, and we did all we could to avoid the motorized mayhem and merciless punishment inflicted on the engines and ears and water and wildlife…and eventually we wound our way into the freshwater savanna as the afternoon wore out and evening approached, paddling and then catching wind once in a while for a short sailing break…into a long straightaway stretching through the woods as only an engineer would have it, a canal leading to the South Mills Lock (the southern one lifting us up to the Dismal Swamp Canal)…arriving pushing 7 PM. Wind doesn’t do much in the bottom of narrow corridors – the trees block and sometimes the wind goes backward to fill a void as the treetops sway the other way, so we couldn’t hardly sail – too many times the sail suddenly blew us backward. The lock (another USACOE project) didn’t open til 8:30 am, and there was no legal place to camp so I went knocking and we were granted access to a dock and fresh cut farm grass for the tent – the owner had gone to a rest home and nobody was home, but the lady across the street cited a similar incident last year when the owner said it was fine…be clean, etc…so she thought it was fine for us to do it this year. Not much vagrant action through here, I guess. About 25 miles yesterday.

The USACOE guy didn’t appear until 8:30 sharp, even though we hovered below the lock since 8:05, and then not until I blasted my blaster horn…said they didn’t normally let kayaks through or some darn thing…but there was no even difficult way to get our rig around and back in…it would have been gruesome…and we locked up…a s ign in the lock read Wilmington 282 mi, Washington DC 230 mi…so we’re planning on DC and that makes us better than halfway there… and we got to the NC Welcome Center and got some info about the Dismal Swamp and then we stopped to look at a great sailboat for sale…we talked about it some while paddling the last 9 miles– a desperate distraction for desperate people …for a total of about 15 today… to here, in VA. We made it here wore out and it is beautiful in its isolation – a cold front is due tonight and N wind for a couple of days, so we figure to stay here at least a day, get up into Lake Drummond and look around – getting above the dam involves an electric tram-type boat transport – you let the cart on tracks below the water load on and go over the top – pictures tomorrow.

pics may25b

pics may25a

May 25

Day 12 May 25 Memorial Day? Sunday – is not MemDay at the end of the month, like NEXT weekend? I give up.
This blog entry has a whole different feel – things have turned easy. No more pain.

Headed for Elizabethtown, gateway to the Dismal Swamp – real name – main claim to fame being GeorgeWashington engineered the canal through that connects the Albermarle and Pamlico Sounds to the Chesapeake Bay, avoiding the Atlantic and making for easy commerce – back in the 1700s. Today, to us it represents a fresh water respite from the brackish sounds and rivers…tasty but wouldn't want to rely on them full time... fresh water is good. The time of year associated with MemDay, a week early or not, is prime time for biting insects, they tell me…mayflies, those little yellow-winged biters, silent but deadly. I don't believe them…and even if I did I'd still be ready to do combat, having bought 2 NASCAR shirt pins (one for Vickie) that are said to repel anything alive for 180 hours…cost $1 each at the WalMart yesterday at Kill Devil Hills.

We left Nick and Dawn's ShangriLa (picture) this morning rested, repaired and lazy, and tonight it's still lazy – we've gotten soft, and it looks like the thrill is over...no more tornadoes, tempestuous seas… I try to keep track of the weather, and these rivers and sounds cause small-scale wind vagaries that are always fooling me, as well as the forecast from the NWS, which couldn't begin to provide that kind of detail, so sensitive to us in a 500 lb 21' toboggan kayak.

So Albermarle Sound exacted a little more revenge for daring the fickle winds and seas…while all good reason and the weather forecast would have one expect a wind N (coming from the N) 5-10 turning NE, we left Point Harbor going S on the lee side of the peninsula, under the bridge (picture), took a right around the point going W and got whacked with 10-15 and 1-2' waves in the face and hunkered into an slow pull from 8:30-noon…a couple of days ago it would have been deadly to torn arms but today the time passed and I even thought to take a (picture) of an osprey nest, but realized got no shots of the furies of hell a few days back when the wind blew…cameras are a new thing. So after 11 the wind calmed, turned to NE around noon and we raised the sail and the wind veered around behind us as we ran NW around 3 mph and made it to around 5mi S of ElizCity, up the Pasquotank River…great water, dark but clean, like weak coffee…tasted pretty good too…

So in the distance all day as we approached there was a Gigantic Structure, like a highway dept salt building but 1000X larger – like to blotted out part of the horizon, and only the govt could afford or have reason to build – looked like a mega-blimp hangar. Come to find out it is a blimp hangar, built by the Navy some years back. It replaced one that was the world's largest free-arched structure, same size, that burnt years ago. This one now houses advertiser blimps, it is said.

They say the curved wall opens like an pearl oyster. This picture isn't mine – I lifted off a google search.

And you see the boat ramp at the water's edge…at 6pm after a long (9.5 hours) in the kayak, covering around 25 miles that ramp looked real good, so there was a kid who said he thought it would be fine to set up a tent by the ramp – there were no cars or action so it looked great…easy, fire up the Coleman and cook the beans/rice that Vickie soaked in a jar on the deck all day, but she wasn't too thrilled about the spot – something about private property and there was nobody to ask permission, and when the kid's mother drove up and told him she thought we shouldn't stay there but stay further up at a sandy beach, Vickie said let's reload what we unloaded and move on – I felt otherwise, having used the cart to get the boat up the ramp and it looked like one of those gift sites, but she was adamant and there could be no argument or attack to do any good, so we shoved back off and went a little further till I spied a sandy beach and went and asked across the street if it would be ok to set up and then leave first thing in the morning. Turns out we ran into another saint – the world seems to be crawling with 'em, and we've sure been lucky to stumble into them.

So this saint is Mark Small, the demonstrative one in the (picture) with his pals and Vickie. A great soul, a guy we will always revere. Seems his family holds title to a boat house (picture), and he offered it to us for the night. The Navy built the boathouse as a PT boat hangar in days of yore and his extended family worked it over into all the comforts of home but nobody was using it so he thought it would be good for us to use and he was so right– in fact we're thinking about building one of our own somewhere someday – up on pilings on the water… moves nicely. Vickie cooked the beans on a real stove, I charged batteries (some on-board gizmos aren't working as they should after repeated immersion) And he offered a beer upon meeting us and then showed the fridge with more and I drank a second thanks Mark – the first beer I've drunk since early March and this whole trip is going down the tubes – it was supposed to be an ordeal, and all was going great until a few days ago. Now we're getting back to normal again. Maybe the Dismal Swamp'll cure us.

Fwd: Pics2

On camping island N of Beaufort

Alligator River ditch from hwy NC95 old bridge

Nick and Dawn Kiousis, Point Harbor

Fwd: Pics 1,2

Camped first morning at N Topsail - haven't used that tent since

N of Beaufort, V setting up

Day 11

Day 11, May 24, Point Harbor NC, The blog has been neglected because I just wasn't familiar with blogging and resorted to emails which of course are limited to addressees...so I'll now transpose stuff scrawled in a notebook and glean emailed high points...

May 13, the day before departure...
The kayak alone, with a few embellishments like hatches etc weighs 100 lbs.

Today for the first time we stuffed in all our stuff for the first time, including 40 lbs of food, 3.5 gallons of water (30 pounds), lots of clothes and camping and living stuff...
solid hatch covers and solar panel and electronics like this little laptop computer.
...totaling 150 lbs easy (we used a bathroom scale).
The thing is crammed chock full, but we left room for ourselves as though it was empty.

So that makes 250 pounds or so, and toting that much just won't work, but the wheeled cart is rated for 275 lbs and we rolled the whole mess around the house, over big roots etc,
and everything seems OK. The pictures show the loaded 21' kayak on the cart...in the dark tonight.

And with me at 145 and V at 120 lbs, we're pushing 425 pounds total load. The kayak is rated to hold 700 lbs, they say...

We haven't gotten it all in the water yet - tomorrow we roll the whole mess a mile to the Wrightsville Beach bridge and put it in and take off, heading N.

Who knows?



Notebook:
May 15 morning 2 - gnats, ospreys on hurricane-snapped tree poles roosting, still air 6:30am scrub oak yaupon fragrance cammed on hammock island 10meters wide 200meters long on W side of ICWW about 3 mi S of N Topsail Beach bridge. Itching gnats, hoping for breeze, all is still except geese trumpeting...no - saxophoning. Water slick calm. I need a thermometer to measure air and water temperature. We slept well...26 miles yesterday.
May 16 morning 2 - 30 mi yesterday left 9am arrived 4 pm Bear Is, Hammock Beach State Park. Turns out bridge was 6 mi away, not 3, but around noon SW wind kicked in for healthy tailwind and the sail did great. Hit 7.8mph on GPS. Fairly cloudy and batteries charged moderately, but GPS faltered. Many brown pelicans, a channel porpoise - glided right over it. Passed through USMC Camp Lejuene, say deer on pristine military reservation in mid-afternoon. Crossed Bear Inlet with incoming tide/wind- both strong but not too bad...and a racoon was on the other side busy until we were next to it...we apologized for disturbing. SunTuf corrugated polycarbonate panel hatch covers working out great. We wear spray skirts against the occasional ICWW (IntraCoastal WaterWay) monster luxury liner cabin cruiser in full tilt, throwing 3-4' wakes right next to us which force us to go to General Quarters (self-preservation emergency)...Navy talk. Here at State Park we have remote campground that we were lucky to get - turns out there are still penalties for vagrants...3 figure fines are levied...and when the 5pm ferry came to pick up the last of the day visitors we were denied camping because we hadn't registered 5 miles from where we came...I finally was able to give the ferry guy my drivers license and $20 which he took back, and the ranger found us the next morning in a howling SW wind that had increased during the night, gave me back my license and $2 change, $9/night and we're going to stay here one more night until the wind lets up. There was driving light rain overnight, and this morning we relocated the tent behind a dense pine thicket for cover against the wind. Part offers showers, but it was a 2 mile walk over scrubby dunes.
We are transitioning - changing reality from domesticated to out there. Muscles are doing fine. Skimmers, plovers, a black bellied plover, herons egrets. Vickie is wonderful - brave, strong, smart.
email on the 16th...
We're camped since last night at the W side of Bogue Inlet - 56 miles covered yesterday and the day before...the first day the 14th. Took the day off after getting rained on all last night here on Bear Is, Hammock Beach St Park. Showers!...so we haven't turned too primitive yet, but we're transitioning from domestic living to sharing life with the creatures of the earth and water. Camping day after day'll do that. Tomorrow we head E to Beaufort, wind willing. After that we ain't sure...lots of options.

email on the 17th...
we had an amazing day as we went from bogue inlet to beaufort inlet via bogue sound,,, 29 miles with unfavorable wind till noon and contrary tide all day, but a beautiful sail the rest of the time until beaufort inlet where we got whaled bigtime...incoming boats and tide whacking seiche waves against big seawall and it was all we could do to make progress. we're headed up the intracoastal wway. dolphins swimming under and storks and tricolor herons and little blue herons and egret rookery and ibis. we're getting healthy. the solar charger is doing beautifully and we've got things better arranged so it looks better and better, and your mother is tougher than nails, except she broke one on her left hand.
Solar powered data card laptop (on fringe of reception) internet has its limits.

email 5/20:
So...Vickie and I are not having fun, but we aren't trying to. We have covered about 180 miles in the past week with a day off, and now we're camped in thunderstorms with a tornado watch after covering 30 miles in harrowing seas and winds gusting 35 easy. We're at the south end of Alligator River, about 50 mi S of Elizabeth City where highway 94 crosses the intracoastal waterway. Everything is working great on the boat, including electronics although Skype phone service is lousy. Amazingly well, everything else. Vickie believes she values her life more than I do mine, but she's wrong. We met great people in Oriental NC, camped in a yard and you can see the newspaper story on us in the website www.towndock.net ...under Shipping News.

The tornado watch on 5/20, I think, yielded a tornado maybe 200yds N of us, moving SE right at the ICWW NC94 bridge...the fringe gust lifted V in the tent off the ground and then let go, while I was securing the kayak against the maelstrom. Let's see...it was around 6:15 pm. Safe?? This has been Everest!...way off the deep end, but hopefully that's over and we can be more like normal people.

We don't know how long we can keep this up,...maybe we should slow down or something but the weather is pretty violent and we catch all the violent opportunities or paddle our arms to death. Rain every other night at least and radical winds as atmopspheric waves zip by. The boat will handle 5-6' seas and vickie got the exhale of a dolphin in her face. This is really great, but we can't call it fun any more than climbing Everest is fun. Eastern NC is amazing from a little, little boat. Things are within the realm of reason, but some would argue.

Fun? Fun?? Is climbing Everest fun?
We've been brutalizing ourselves over the past week, but it has been great!...but not fun. Love is great, but not fun. Vickie is great...and she's fun sometimes. I'm never fun. You are often fun. We have gone close to 180 miles in the last week, paddling and sailing into and over harrowing waves in the little kayak, camping wherever we can find a place. Now we're close to the Albermarle Sound.

A week has passed, and yes, we have liftoff and have transcended. We are trying to learn to speak eagle, but the eagles aren't helping.

5/21 - Day 8
A high demand, traveling this way. Much is called for, beyond familiar extremes. Paddling arms like gorillas, legs occupied running the rudder pedals, body balance working muscles as we and the boat become one as kayak flies over and into waves/troughs on multi-mile open water crossings, every wave it's own danger to deal with and we're continually dealing with one and poised for the next, poised for anything while paddling and being thrown, Vickie saying with full conviction, "We're going to die."...and after we make it around the point to the calm water but still 30+ mph gusting raging wind we deflate and slide along in the lee awhile, and then she's up for another crossing - we did 4 yesterday from Pamlico Beach up the Pungo River to the ICWW ditch toward Alligator River.
Extreme demands met because no choice - we had to work like never before, dig deep until beyond our capabilities, and then beyond that...deeper.
We're on the USACE (Corps of Engineers)- dug ditch on the ICWW where NC highway 94 causeway/bridge crosses in the Alligator River marsh (no gators), and we were lucky to find this spot to camp where the old bridge was because there was nowhere else to speak of. We have had 5 nights with rain/7 nights total. This morning a family of geese floated away, familiar with all extremes as if this is just another day. Grackles live under the bridge in the I-beams, dozens of them, making a racket...using the bridge as a home, chasing away a passing heron while the real wildlife avoids human stuff, staying out in the swamp as real and strong as the rest of nature, always ready...but we're here with the human stuff and we ain't complaining, except for that grackle racked - there isn't much vehicular traffic...a car every 5 minutes or so. I see swamp grasses expanse interspersed with various trees. So we went from Bear Is to Oriental in a day and camped near the boat ramp at the yard of dear Grace Evans, beautiful 78 year old grandmother from Martha's Vinyard whose parents lived into their 90s and quit swimming when the water got to 68 - too warm! Grace moved to Oriental in 72' and had a couple of sailing schools and got the RiverKeeper programing going in E NC and was a founding member of the concept of the NewYearsEve dragon that parades through the town in Oriental fashion (the town was named for a foundered ship whose nameboard was the inspiration, and it is a town in E NC, so what the heck- cool little town on the Neuse river - the crossing of the Neuse was a quite harrowing 5 mile run across 30 mph gusting SW winds right down the river with quick choppy 3-5 footers, until a flotilla of 3 megasportfisher boats met us halfway across, each augmenting the seas to 6'+ and we were delirious with incredulity as they passed so near our bow - we had to veer off!...but Grace is a fireball of environmentalism and passion for all things good. And then over at Grace's came Melinda and Keith of the TownDock.net newspaper, festooned with camera and notebook, and we all spent the afternoon together - Vickie and I mostly happy to be alive on terra firma, but these folks were real nice and we had a good time, and we hit a little restaurant. Melinda and Keith had a great little 21' BayHen sailboat, well worth investigating, and they said we'd be featured in their towndock.net under Shipping News, I think...the pictures would be interesting. For my part, my camera wasn't set to take pictures so I pulled the trigger and shot nothing, it turned out.

So I haven't had an opportunity to clean off my glasses in a day (it turns out another day would go without an opportunity). All fat has been burned off after a week. Thought of a funny name for a boat: SwanSong II. Well...it was funny at the time.
Things have changed - now I squat to poop and don't have to wipe - the turds are that solid and clean...a good thing.

5/22 Day 9
This morning at East Lake on the E side of mouth of Alligator River at NC64 bridge - nothing here but a launch ramp...we had hoped to get food and a shower at a motel or campground or a gas station or anything...a town dot on the map but it turns out it was once a ferry terminal and now the few shacks are deserted... and it was no picnic getting here, having finished ICWW USACE ditch into Alligator River, up W side along Wildlife Refuge - one osprey and a healthy W-NW wind - we were just able to catch and make some use of the wind until the last few miles when it turned NW and buffeted us as we paddled against it, with lots of cypress stumps well out into the water - we hit a few, and were always a threat, and zero camping opportunities until we got here. Tired, worn out really worn out.

5/23, 24 Day 10, 11
Crossed dreaded Albermarle Sound, shellshocked from previous crossings, and this one 7mi across with hellish NW winds gusting 30 all day kept us holed up on Durant Island on the S side, waiting for 5 pm when the wind should have subsided...it did enough to make the Sound navigable across the wind to Point Harbor, so we set out with big swells only occasionally wetting us down until we got to the middle, when the wind turned to NE!..and we dug it out the rest of the way with whitecaps coming at us and swells coming in from the left and meeting in a mid-sound seiche-type condition that made it injurious labor and insultingly wet. After days of brutally hard work, scuzzy and low on drinking water we anticipated comforts, with the many fine houses along the point and a big bridge to Kitty Hawk, but there was nothing again - no gas station, no nothing. Vickie went to a house to ask to see the sheriff for help, and she knocked at the door of Nick and Dawn Kiousis, who opened their hearts and home to us and we've been here 2 days recuperating, restocking...and we had the worlds greatest breakfast at Stack 'Em High, Pancakes and So Forth on the ocean side of the bridge, and then S 9.5 miles (mileposts) where they have a hopping breakfast house that seats 110 and it was full this morning. Nick's folks came over on the boat from Greece and did well with restaurants, and sons Nick and Steve bought them out and each has a breakfast house. Nick/Dawn's house is on the W side of the bridge, and our tent is in their back yard on Currituck Sound. A godsend - open-hearted people who make a hard living running a restaurant and making feel welcome every person who comes in and stands in line to order the finest omelettes and pancakes and coffee and grits and hash browns and toast...the line runs outside and you don't want to miss the place if you're ever out here.

Vickie can go and talk to people and I'm one lucky guy to have her as a guide through the human world of strangers - she makes them our friends.

They also have a great German Shorthair Pointer, Scout, who is the fastest runner and best leaper and acts like a zany bird dog, oblivious to most people.

Our muscles were worked beyond pain, and over the past 2 days the pain came and is now subsiding, and a northerly wind push will be over after tonight and we'll push off tomorrow morning toward Elizabeth City, 30 miles to the NW, before heading up the Pasqoutank River toward the Dismal Swamp and then aircraft carriers of Norfolk.

email 5/23:
The wind has been all over the place and sometimes crazy fast and we've been using the sail and it is just too great running that toboggan through such amazing scenery...and there ain't been diddly for camping places so we have to keep going once we get started from the last lousy camping place - it ain't like there are towns or motels or campgrounds or anything human...so we keep moving with the rest of the wildlife. We smell the roses and move on to more - the wildlife would prefer that we keep moving, too.

There are two worlds, and ne'er the twain shall meet - the world of humans and the world of wildlife...there just ain't no gettin along, even for the humans who mean no harm, who have no interest in hunting or fishing, eating or molesting...wildlife is wary and elusive or it'll be eaten or it will kill, and we humans skim the surface of a dangerous interplay. They may be beautiful and inspiring, but they don't want us around and we need to give them their space, to respect their right to be...nothing we want is worth their expense - there is nothing we can do for them that doesn't harm them except to leave them be and give them the room they need.

We reached the breaking point many times and we bent most of the time, but the last couple of days we had a few breakdowns...electronics and emotional - exhaustion, losing pounds, working muscles all the way down into the marrow and pure cold blooded fear that forced physical stamina into overdrive, over and beyond again and again too many times...just to see how far we could go 'til we couldn't go no more, but mainly because there was no place to camp and we had to go on...once well after sundown, crossing the Pamlico River on a still full moon night and sailing the kayak up to 11.5 mph on the GPS readout - BELIEVE IT!..ahead of thunderstorms sailing across a howling wind with 4-5' waves washing across the deck in a raging foam hadn't cleaned the layers of caked salt off our glasses in 2 days...and other times labored...paddling the 500 lb boat for hours into wind with pounding waves causing the bow to submarine and water to whack Vickie...gad! And sometimes really scroungy camping conditions but sleeping as though dead. Often frantic discussions/arguements/last rights administered. Quick oats mixed with cold water never tasted so good.

Sometimes out there we wonder at a butterfly gamely crossing a wide expanse, and we realize we aren't much different.

Today we're holed up outside the house of a couple of saints at Point Harbor, where Currituck Sound meets Albermarle Sound after a cold front blew through last night with a contrary wind today and tomorrow. The GPS reads 239 miles, but we didn't have it on all the time. It is suffering electrolysis from repeated immersions while charging - the contacts dissolved, but the backup charger is working. I'll keep it in a bag or below from now on.

Now that we're headed for "smaller" water for a while we'll slow down some...hopefully we'll find more places to stop - the scenery has been overwhelming - eagles and ospreys and shore waders and walkers, racoon, deer...maybe a wolf, marshes and forests and flowers and dolphins in strange places - playing with us...

We're on our second day off now, relaxing and feeling the muscles heal slightly, but we were beat to smithereens and then some. We were going screaming fast at times, and while I was shocked to see 11.5, there ain't much current in the Pamlico Basin except when wind-driven, and I don't much mind counting that. It may have been while tobogganing across the face of a big breaking roller - the boat really zips cleanly for a moment or two...

We don't know how much further we'll get, but we'll go tomorrow for ElizCity and then up the DisSwamp Canal - probably pure muscle, 2-3 mph and not much for free, but hopefully not much against us either.

Well, May 1, but the solar panel has not yet been received from the manufacturer, so still getting things together.