Thursday, October 22, 2015

Elizabeth City


The second lock down, South Mills lock, first operates at 8:30AM and 8 of the 9 boats shove off at 7:30. 
Foggy morning

Bridge before lock

Leaving South Mills Lock




A couple boats shoot out ahead of the group. I think they really thought the lock master would open the bridge and lock them down ahead of the rest of the group. Some people have a rich fantasy life. 8:30 is 8:30 and they do not deviate and if there are any northbound boats they go through first adding another ½ hour delay to the south bound boats. Well, the rest of the group apparently are math experts and figure, hmm, 4 miles to the Elizabeth City lock, one hour to get there, maybe a speed of 4 miles an hour will be sufficient. It is a pain to come to a complete standstill in a narrow canal and maintain control. Moving slowly you maintain steerage and control and save a lot of fuel. Anyways we all catch up to them and fortunately there are no northbound boats today. We fill the lock walls with 8 boats and one additional boat rafted to us for a total of nine boats.




Again we all exit the locks and the same boats take off again ahead of the group. The next draw bridge is about 18 miles ahead at Elizabeth City. Even though it is an “open on demand” bridge, the “open on demand” is when the bridge operator demands it, not the boats. He is more concerned with not pissing off the locals, where he lives with excessive bridge delays. And he is also experienced enough to know this time of year there is going to be a group off boats coming from the South Mills 8:30AM lock opening, so he delays the opening until most of us get there.

We all get slips or wall space at the Elizabeth City free docks. We have a gorgeous, summer like afternoon, relaxing on the boat and walking around. Big change from our last visit two years ago, about two weeks later in the season. It was cold and windy here and there were only 5 boats, the place was deserted. Today there are almost 25 boats. There is a Mainship 39 Trawler from Charlotte, Vermont, here.

Elizabeth City Free Docks

They are famous here for hosting a wine and cheese party for the cruisers. Last time here, one day there was not enough boats and the other was too cold to host the party. Tonight there was only one person in the office, so no go. Tomorrow they plan to have the wine and cheese party, so we just have to stay one more day.

Elizabeth II, a 16th century sailing vessel, visiting Elizabeth City




Tonight we go out to dinner at “Cypress Creek Grill” an excellent restaurant, top of the Trip Advisor list for Elizabeth City. We go a little early and the place is empty, we wonder if we made a good choice. Well, the place is full by the time we leave, for good reason, as we now know.

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