Thursday, October 23, 2008

With a film of lacy white gauze as a backdrop, smudge-pot puffs of fair weather cumulus chug by from west to east.  They are packets of gray down and they cruise so low in the sky as to look catchable with a butterfly net.  It is 11:30 in the morning.  I fire up Kobuk's yellow beast, collect the mooring lines, and motor out from shore to get in the channel.

 It has been a long time since Kobuk was last on the move--ten months, in fact.  She was scheduled for an April departure, but neither she nor I have ever been known for keeping to schedules.  All manner of life events kept interfering with the summer project of running down to the Bahamas, but now at last the project is under way.  Immediately ahead is a seventy mile stretch of the lower Chesapeake Bay, after which we can duck for cover in Norfolk and then begin the thousand miles of Intracoastal Waterway that lie between there and southern Florida.

It is never wise to harbor preconceived ideas about how the unknown is going to be, but I have them nonetheless.  Kobuk is a river boat, designed to operate on waters that are more protected from the wind, where the hazards below the surface are often more serious than the ones on it.  For the past few thousand miles, Kobuk has coped with open water conditions for which she is only marginally suited.  Now, though, her small size and shallow draft should give her an advantage over most other vessels.  In other words, I am brimming with (over)confidence.

So sure am I of Kobuk's suitability for this next leg of the voyage that we are departing without the one form of insurance that actually would be available to us at a reasonable price: TowBoatUS.  As I understand it, this service is virtually indispensible for anybody transiting the Intracoastal.  For not much more than a hundred dollars, one can get the equivalent of AAA towing service.  Pay your dues and whenever you run aground a TowBoatUS affiliate will come out, toss you a line, pull you free, and tow you to port.  Evidently, this assistance can easily cost the better part of a thousand dollars so TowBoatUS is viewed by most as a no-brainer.  I agree: it is.  But even so, I haven't gotten around to making the call.

But wait--I'm getting us ahead of ourselves here.  We still have to do this last stretch of open water on the Chesapeake Bay and so it would behoove us to keep our eye on the ball.  Or, since this is football season (and Utah is off to an 8-0 start), remember to take it "one game at a time."

We are out of the Corrotoman River now, and passing down the last few estuarine miles of the Rappahannock.  The wind and waves are building from the northeast but we are confronting them at a reasonably obtuse angle and nothing is creaking or groaning or banging around just yet.  In short order we round the marker at Sting Ray Point--where Captain Smith is said to have nearly died when he stepped on one--and head more or less downwind.  There are small craft advisories today, but I thought that we would be able to cope with these moderately windy conditions since we would be on a downwind leg.  Besides, if it proved to be too miserable out here, only a handful of leeward miles would separate us from the protection to be gotten on the back side of Gwynn Island.  Well, the seas are not too rough so I think we will continue and make a full day of it.  We are headed for the Poquoson River, a right bank tributary of the James River that I calculate we might reach more or less at sundown if we continue at our six miles per hour Yamaha pace.

We don't continue at that pace, though.  In mid-afternoon I get nervous that we might not get to the Poquoson until after sunset and so to avoid looking for an unfamiliar dock in the dark I fire up the Mazda and we surge and slog south for a couple hours, surfing whenever we catch a wave and struggling to move at all when pushing into the lifting back of one.

Last weekend, I drove down to Yorktown to visit Pete and Caddy Meekins who own a lovely estate on the Poquoson and maintain their boat dock in a little slough tucked behind a grassy spit of land.  They were leaving on Monday for Ireland but encouraged me to use their dock when I passed this way.  Now I am trying to find it from the water and that is the reason for shunning the prospect of a post-sunset arrival.  The wind is pushing lumpy stuff right up the Poquoson mouth, but after getting a few miles in, the twists and turns of the estuary bring a little calm to the waters, even though the wind still keeps shepherding us along.  The Meekins place is on a promontory that readily sets it apart from the many neighboring homes and in the slanting sunlight of late afternoon I take Kobuk around the weedy spit and experience the relief of doing my first docking of the season with nobody to watch.

In the evening Kobuk lies in placid stillness, her bow pointing off towards the Meekins kitchen, while I make Thai noodles for dinner on the Coleman Stove aft.  Wine, and more wine, remind me of the many evenings in seasons past when Kobuk and I have spent time together in this sort of peaceful solitude.

It is a pity that Kobuk could not make it here before the Meekins left.  They are lifelong boaters--up and down the eastern seaboard and back and forth across the Atlantic--and their zest for civilized adventure would have, I feel sure, fortified Kobuk's already well-developed sense of mission.     

Depart Yankee Point Marina:             37* 41.580' N  /  76* 29.301' W
Arrive Meekins', Poquoson River:     37* 09.337' N  /  76* 25.439' W
Distance:                                               50 miles
Total Distance:                                     7,154 miles

Friday, October 24, 2008

This is one of those days when it would be prudent and proper to stay in port, but a month of labor and delay getting Kobuk ready for service has left me less patient than usual.  The forecast is for easterly winds all day at ten to twenty knots.  This is brisk and is sure to roil the waters a bit, but the forecast for tomorrow is far, far worse and only 20-25 miles separate us from the protection of Hampton Roads.  The problem is, getting out of the Poquoson will require five or six miles of working northeastward followed by a dogleg right and four miles of punching straight into the waves.  Only after that can we bear away to the south and expect to confront a somewhat less hostile force.  It is going to be toughest at the start so we set out in mid-morning with high hopes of sneaking around the bend before the wind builds.

The scene has “November” written all over it: industrial grade overcast blots out the sky and a chill breeze in port means that out on the Bay the ruckus already has started.  Out we go, past the ragged string of estuary estates, out past the occasional mid-channel egret post, weaving around the red nuns and green cans, until finally the estuary opens wide and we reach the bay itself. We slog our way out far enough to cross the Poquoson Flats then turn right to cross it in a zone where the electronic chart indicates minimum depths of six feet.

But this is a mistake.  We are trying to cut the corner to save a few miles but by crossing here where the water is this shallow the easterly waves of the bay are bumping into each other in their hurry to get at us.  There’s little risk of taking on water or suffering significant damage, but the ride leaves a lot to be desired.  Besides, I forgot how hard it is to stay on course when the Remote Troll and the little Yamaha are confronted with so much opposition.  We muddle through, of course, but it requires constant attention.  Every wave threatens to knock us off course and the combination of low engine power and sluggish steering means that failure to anticipate an impending deviation will result in comical efforts to get back on bearing—rather like a novice driver trying to steer his first car down a bumpy road.

The perverse thing is that the waves keep coming at us.  Even after turning the corner and heading south, the wind and waves are still only about thirty degrees off the port bow.  The more we come around to the south, the more the wind blows out of the south. It seems that I have failed to account for the natural deflection of wind that occurs when it angles against a coastline.

 By early afternoon, the angle of attack has improved slightly and we are no longer subjected to such harsh treatment.  Then we start to spin in circles—360 degrees, then 540 degrees—and the toggle switch does nothing to arrest it.  I automatically assume that the new wire cable in the Remote Troll pulley system has just parted and, after shutting down the engine, stagger back to the stern of the boat to confirm this.  But no, it is not the cable; it is the spring that keeps the tension on the cable.  This is a surprise, but at least I have a spare.  Only one spare though, so it doesn’t make much sense to try a replacement in these bumpy waters: if I drop the spring we will be port bound until at least Tuesday waiting for a replacement to be shipped.  I unthread the snarled cable and stow it before securing the outboard by tying it off in a fixed position.  Then the main engine roars to life and we proceed under “backup” power.  This does make things easier since the Mazda can drive us more forcefully into the naughty slop.  In little over half hour we make it to the strait that separates Chesapeake Bay from Hampton Roads, and once through there we proceed at an ever increasing pace.  It feels good to be breezing along at a handsome clip with Kobuk skittering along on the ever more protected channel surface leading to downtown Norfolk.  Standing in the companionway with the cabin top lifted, I thrill to the high speed transit we are doing in the waters of a major port.  But then, as we zip by a short piece of 2x4 lumber it dawns on me that floating debris can be a real hazard in a place like this, and I throttle back to make the last few miles at tugboat speed.

Actually, the presence of debris, I later learn, is more a function of recent tidal action than a risk associated with this busy harbor.  Frequent north winds over the past couple weeks have caused higher tides than usual in the southern Chesapeake, and this has swept an assortment of debris off thousands of miles of waterfront property.

Waterside Marina, Norfolk:     36* 50.635’ N  /  76* 17.509’ W
Distance:                                    37 miles
Total Distance:                          7,191 miles

Saturday, October 25, 2008

In the minds of most, Norfolk is just another small American city of no great distinction.  Your view will be profoundly different, however, if you are steeped in the military culture—and especially if you have connections with the navy.  Here we have the nerve center of American naval activity.  When you come into Hampton Roads by boat and start up the estuary that leads to the city, you can see little but naval shipyards with a great collection of fixed cranes standing shoulder to shoulder on massive piers.  They follow upon each other for several miles.  The piers angle out into the bay and many, if not most, are occupied by naval warships of various descriptions.  They are starkly modern, these ships—sleek but slab sided.  Lacking the curvaceous shape of traditional watercraft, these twenty-first century war machines have the multifaceted intersection of planes one might associate with a complexly cut diamond that has been painted gray and is being viewed under a magnifying glass.  There are no external adornments, no obvious passageways connecting interior and exterior, no significant array of portholes or hatches to imply what might lie within.  They have the intimidating anonymity of dark sunglasses—obviously purposeful and powerful and capable of surveying their surrounding world, but impervious to any attempt to see in or to fathom intent.

Imposing are the ports where shipping is the lifeblood, but for most of them the cut of the ships and the look of the harbor facilities are . . . well . . . rather less striking than in a harbor dominated by the navy.  Of course the ships are different.  In commercial ports, the mammoth beasts designed for transport have a prehistoric appearance whereas a naval center like Norfolk, sheltering a fleet that is designed for speed and stealth, is truly futuristic.  In the former the raison d’être is profit while in the latter it is power.  The more surprising consequence—a consequence that is obvious when you think about it but that had not occurred to me before--is that naval facilities are uniformly modern and state of the art.  Cranes and docks and ships all look queerly virginal considering their worldly purpose.

This day in Norfolk is a mixed bag of gray skies, heavy rains, and big winds.  The Bay of the Chesapeake must be a tumultuous place and even the Intracoastal heading south most likely suffers from problems of visibility and wind-blown drift in narrow confines.  I am here for the day and probably for tomorrow too.

After successfully replacing the broken spring on the Remote Troll and completing a list of other small tasks about the boat, I take advantage of a break in the rain to pedal over to Nauticus, a large maritime museum that combines one floor sponsored by the navy with a top floor civilian exhibit dedicated to oceanography.  Up there on that top floor is a screening room that happens to be presenting an excellent documentary entitled The Living Sea.  I shuffle in and spend forty minutes appreciating its stunning cinematography, but the biggest surprise comes at the end when the final credits roll and the huge, slightly curved screen slides back from left to right to reveal about an acre of picture windows overlooking the Norfolk Harbor.  Sitting in a darkened movie theatre looking out on a broad sweep of the open water between Norfolk and Portsmouth—from a third floor vantage--makes a storm tossed sky and darkened, ruffled waters look dramatic indeed.

After this, I move on down to the second floor to take the flying catwalk that runs over to the deck of the battleship that the navy has made a part of its museum exhibit.  Its guns are big, of course.  An exhibit within the Nauticus building makes this obvious by suspending a VW Bug in midair and pointing out that a battleship can send ordinance of this weight some twenty miles distant.  What most fascinates me, however is that, just to keep the below decks from getting too warm in the sun,  the entire deck area of the battleship (Wisconsin) is planked over with teak.  Teak!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

This would be a good day for heading south on the Intracoastal, but I opt to stay put and spend most of the sunny hours sitting in the back of Kobuk and working on my online courses.  Late in the afternoon, however, I take a break and pedal a few blocks into the city to visit the Douglas MacArthur Memorial.  In a park-like setting on a small block in downtown Norfolk, the memorial is housed in two separate buildings.  The more substantial of the two—the one with the general assuming a pose in bronze at the foot of the imposing stone steps leading up to the entry—contains all sorts of memorabilia and personal effects that belonged to our heroic soldier.  The exhibits are thoughtful and manage to attach meaningful narrative to various collections of what would otherwise be trivial artifacts.

The other building, set off to one side, is clearly intended to play an ancillary role.  It is architecturally consistent but lacks the external grandiosity so evident in the main building.  In this respect, the main exhibit hall captures well the nature of the man who inspired it: a serene contentment in the role of diva.  The secondary building is used to screen a short film on the life of the general.

MacArthur was indeed a heroic figure—courageous in the field, inspirational to his men, and tactically brilliant.  But we all know that he was also rather controversial.  It is a pity is that the memorial does so little to capitalize on the inherent tensions residing in a man who viewed his own greatness with no hint of humility.  The brief film about his life is particularly one-dimensional.  Done in black and white, with the smug certitude of a 1940’s newsreel, it presents MacArthur as utterly flawless.  Such perfection always leaves one feeling a little empty.  All those highs, with every high higher than the last one, with not a single low—how can one stay interested in that?  Indeed, how can it be believed?

Poor MacArthur gets caught in what I think of as the George Washington Syndrome.  Hardly anyone can think of a derogatory thing to say about our first president because nearly all our sources of information portray him as monotonously good.  That’s why Thomas Jefferson is so much more interesting: his penchant for petty behavior and his addiction to Sally Hemmings make him a much more intriguing hero than George.  Only someone so simplistic as to like Superman better than Batman could ever prefer George to Thomas.  The pity is that Douglas MacArthur was such a ripe fruit waiting to be plucked: we like seeing his remarkable accomplishments, but, please, show us his dark side as well.

Monday, October 27, 2008

What is going on with the price of gas?  When I got to Virginia in late September, gas was selling for about $3.70 per gallon.  Now when I check out the prices I see that it has dropped to around $2.40.  This rather undermines the widely held notion that a shortage of refining capacity was causing an excess of demand over supply, does it not?  As far as I am aware, no new refineries have recently come on line or dramatically upped their productive capacity.  One might argue that the high prices have greatly suppressed the demand for the product and that this is the reason for the decline in prices, but such an argument is not persuasive since the sudden surge in prices that happened last year was too abrupt to be accounted for by expanding world demand—admittedly growing, but only at a steady pace and not in a manner resembling quantum packets.  No, the price of gas must be tied to less rational forces, such things as uninformed perceptions regarding the availability of the product or manipulations of the market by big players.

These are the thoughts going through my mind as I take gas at a marina over on the Portsmouth side of the estuary.  From here, the estuary narrows down and wriggles southward for a half dozen miles before a turn off to the right leads into the Dismal Swamp.  The passage through the swamp itself is along a shallow, straight cut that runs for roughly twenty miles and connects a small tributary creek of the Norfolk estuary with the headwaters of the Pasquotank River.  The estuary that is straddled by Norfolk and Portsmouth is actually the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River.

In this region, rivers are not exactly what you think.  The Elizabeth River, for example is nothing but a very small creek that originates about ten miles inland and runs no more than two or three miles before flaring out to become its own brackish estuary.  Not just any old estuary but a great humungous one, big enough to be the home port for America’s mighty navy.  The Elizabeth River is not exceptional in this regard; here in this coastal lowland where post-Pleistocene sea levels have been rising relative to the land, lots of insignificant creeks perform a similar miracle.

When I go to the marina office to pay for the gas, I learn from the man behind the cash register that Deep Creek Lock, the entrance for the Dismal Swamp Canal, only opens a few times each day and that the next scheduled opening is at 1:30 pm, which is about an hour from now.  Ten miles lie between us and the lock, so as soon as Kobuk works her way far enough up the estuary to escape from the “No Wake” zone, we shift over to the Mazda and fly along on a sinuous slick of calm water.  There is actually a strong and blustery wind about, but here the waterway is too narrow for any chop to build.  We arrive precisely at the appointed hour and line ourselves up behind the half dozen boats already waiting to enter Deep Creek Lock.

This is exciting.  Here I am in the lock with two sailboat singlehanders and also a fellow on a Nordic Tug who is single handing.  Not only that, the sailboat slightly forward of me and on the other side is a large Wharram catamaran with a woman on board who has no trouble getting us all into a round table conversation as we stand on our decks handling the lines that secure us to the sides of the lock.  It turns out that her name is Ann.  She and her husband Neville built their boat in England and brought it across the Atlantic in order to make the seasonal migration up and down the east coast.  She asks me about Kobuk and compliments me on her looks, and when I reply that I am fascinated by her boat because I once built a Wharram cat, she encourages me to stay here by the lock tonight and take a look through their craft.  This is an offer I cannot refuse, and once through the lock make way to the spacious (and free) public dock no more than a hundred yards distant.

Deep Creek Lock:     36* 44.761’ N  /  76* 20.457’ W
Distance:                    11 miles
Total Distance:          7,202 miles

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

A Wharram cat!  This is it for me.  So far on this trip I have been faithful to Kobuk, but the temptation of a Wharram catamaran is a real test of my fidelity.  Of course it is not rational, but infidelity often isn’t.  I already have a boat and a plan, and we have proven ourselves to be compatible.  I am delighted with this voyage and I think Kobuk is pretty much the ideal companion.  So what am I doing lusting after a different boat?

Well, a Wharram cat is special.  A Wharram cat is what got my juices flowing in the first place.  I was set to build one that I could live on and use to sail around the world.  I let practical affairs get in the way and even though I built a smaller Wharram cat and used her to learn to sail, I never carried through with the plan to build a bigger one.  I never got to the global cruising.  Kobuk and this trip are a mutant manifestation of that original dream, but seeing real people on a real Wharram cat, doing what I had originally had in mind—well, it tempts me to park Kobuk and start work on a new boatbuilding project.

After I tied off yesterday afternoon, Ann and Neville invited me aboard for a tour of their boat, and then encouraged me to stick around for dinner as well.  The two of them were the first to have constructed this particular Wharram design and so naturally they know all about what to do and what not to do when building a Wharram.  They also are experienced sailors: they have put over 35,000 miles on Peace IV and can talk authoritatively about how she sails.  Their enthusiasm was palpable, and I just couldn’t help myself—I wanted to build another one of these things.

It turns out that Ann and Neville sell plans for Wharram designs.  When Ann saw how hot I was to build one, she tried to discourage me, pointing out that at my age I might be better served to buy a used one and spend more of my (remaining) time sailing.  This was excellent advice but of course I couldn’t yet take it to heart.  I wanted to build.  She made another logical appeal.  She reminded me that I already have a marvelous boat and an exciting plan, and that there is no good reason to “change horses in midstream.”  I respected her arguments, but she could see that they weren’t making much headway, so finally she had little choice but to recommend what she thought would be the most appropriate design.  In the end, we resolved together that a Tiki 30’ would best fit my needs.  It is the smallest reasonable design for world cruising and has lines so sweet as to keep me awake at night.

So now today I am staying here at the dock next to Deep Creek Lock.  It is cold and rainy, but the real reason for staying put is to keep myself close to the Wharram dream for just a little longer.  It happens that Ann and Neville know the lockmaster here, a good hearted man named Robert who makes it a habit to prepare coffee and provide breakfast for all the boaters tied up overnight.  As you can imagine, all the old hands know Robert and look eagerly forward to seeing him again when they pass his way.  Evidently, Ann and Neville have a sort of arrangement with Robert that whenever they come through Deep Creek Lock they will assume the morning cooking duties and prepare rum & raisin pancakes for everybody.  Thus it is that I attend a sort of breakfast party—and even end up getting to cook pancakes as well as eat them.

The day passes quickly.  I get to know others along the dock and for the first time I feel as if I am part of a grand shared adventure.  All these people are headed south—off to the Bahamas, for the most part—and they all are buzzed by the excitement of what they are doing.  None, it seems, is so wealthy as to take it all for granted.  People socialize with an abandon I haven’t seen since the sixties.  Nobody is very young, however, so the hippie formula of sex, drugs, and rock and roll is not pursued with the vigor of that bygone era. 

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The frost is on the pumpkin.  Sleep last night was occasionally interrupted by a draft of frigid air sneaking in under the hem of the sleeping bag.  I have been using it as a duvet because of the misguided presumption that I am too far south to need a body bag.  Robert’s morning coffee helps to get the chill out, but there is now little doubt that I have underestimated the potential for cold weather in coastal Dixie.  My cold weather gear is limited so today I plan to transit the canal with all curtains zipped on and the cabin top dogged down.

 Since arriving here at Deep Creek Lock, I have gotten to know Fred Beechler, the solo voyager on a Nordic Tug who came through the lock at the same time I did.  Fred used to be a mechanic for Ford, but when he retired he sold his home and used his savings to buy this boat.  He lives on it year round, doing the seasonal shuttle between the Northeast and the Bahamas (although this year he plans on wintering in Florida).  Pretty much all his possessions are now “on board,” so he has successfully fitted his life into a nifty little powerboat that keeps him on the move.  We decide to follow each other down through the Dismal Swamp Canal.

The canal is rifle-bore straight, except for a single abrupt bend of about thirty degrees part way along its course.  Because the waters associated with Chesapeake Bay have a different tidal regime than those in the Pasquotank’s Albemarle Sound, the Dismal Swamp Canal has a lock at each end, making it possible to pass along a waterway that has no current (and also, I suppose, elevating the water level a foot or two in order to diminish the amount of excavation that had to be done during construction).

There is no swamp here.  It must be off to the right since the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge occupies a large chunk of territory that terminates here on the west bank of the canal.  But really, all I ever see during the passage along the canal is tall trees hanging out over the low banks.  It is a lovely passage down a bowered waterway, but nothing do I see of swampiness.  Every once in a while an excavated channel joins the canal at a right angle from the Dismal Swamp side, but these do little more than accentuate the fact that the interstices are high and dry.

I have been thinking of stopping at the Dismal Swamp Canal Welcome Center just long enough to see what it is all about, but when Kobuk approaches the dock, the jet drive clogs with debris.  I get Kobuk to slide over to the bank of the canal, past the mooring dock, and then attach her to shore with an anchor and a line to a post.  The required swim for clearing the jet drive grating cools my ardor for carrying on today, so instead Fred and I take a short ride into South Mills on our bicycles.

Dismal Swamp Welcome Center, NC:      36* 30.339’ N  /  76* 21.318’ W
Distance:                                                    17 miles
Total Distance:                                          7,219 miles
 

Thursday, October 30, 2008

There is good reason to get an early start today.  South Mills Lock is located only a few miles farther along and like Deep Creek Lock at the other end of the canal it only opens four times a day.  The first opening is at 8:30 am, so boats from here hoping to pass through need to depart around 7:30.  I am up well before that, in the gray light of early morning, and start to organize for an early departure.  When I unzip the canvas and step out onto the side deck, however, my foot slips off and I find myself straddling the carling.  It is a very cold morning, but only now do I realize that not just the windows but the entire topsides are reamed in ice—not frost but a thin layer of ice.

It is impossible to stand anywhere on the exterior topsides, and this greatly slows the process of preparing for departure.  By the time the stern anchor and the forward mooring line are retrieved, we are a good ten minutes behind all the other boats.  Well, ten minutes tardiness should be easy enough to make up.  But wait, as I power Kobuk away from shore the jet drive fouls once again.  This means we will have to travel at a slower pace than all the other boats and that sooner or later I am going to have to take another swim.  The morning frost is so thick that nothing can be seen through the windows.  As a result, I have to contemplate the frigid prospect of  clearing the jet drive  while steering along the canal with the cabin top open and a cold breeze blowing.

I decide to motor down to the lock, chasing after everybody else, and then tie off to do the dirty deed.  Immediately before the lock there is a low bridge and then after that a long wall to which boats can tie when the lock is not open.  The lock keeper first opens the bridge to let waiting boats through.  Then he closes it and drives down to the lock to open its gate for the boats to enter.  I figure Kobuk and I will be too late to get past the bridge to the tie-up wall, but the lock keeper sees us in the distance and keeps the bridge open as Kobuk putts along at her six miles per hour.  Meanwhile, the entire town of South Mills appears to be waiting for the bridge to close.  I feel anxious, but carry on and then sidle up to the long wall.  It is now 8:30, but I think I’ll postpone locking through until the next opening at 11:00.  That way, the sun will have a chance to melt the ice off Kobuk before I do the obligatory swim. 

This is one of those times when things go right.  I wander off to have breakfast on this frosty morning and by the time I return the sun has swept the deck clean.  Then, before getting in the water I start the Mazda to see how badly the jet intake is clogged, only to discover that in fact it now works fine.  Whatever was up in there must have dropped away when the hull stood still for a while.  No swim!

Now in a much better state of mind, and with the thermometer on the rise, we lock through, make the passage along Turner’s Cut, and snake on down the Pasquotank River.  All the way to Elizabeth City the river banks are crowded with undersized deciduous trees with a thinning palate of pastel autumn leaves.  Many trees along the banks are actually in the water and have wet blackened bases from which the roots splay.  A following breeze occasionally ripples the narrow estuary which has water the dark blue color of the deeps.  The day is sunny and clear, but the blue and yellow of the sky are upstaged by the striking tints of the trees and water down below.

When Kobuk rounds the last turn before Elizabeth City, there are a few boats already waiting for a bridge to rise so that they can get to the free downtown docks for which this town is so famous.  Just as we approach the other boats and have to throttle back, the bridge lifts and we all troop through.  Everyone is scrambling to find a vacant slip, of course, but for Kobuk there is no problem because Fred and his friend Steve (who is mayor of the city) are there waving to us and motioning us in to a narrow slot between some pilings.  I make a mess of the "landing," but eventually manage to loop lines around the four pilings to which Kobuk must be secured.  I needn’t have worried about finding a slip—this one is too narrow for most boats hereabouts.

Elizabeth City:       36* 17.929 N  /  76* 13.100’ W
Distance:               23 miles
Total Distance:     7,242 miles