We had originally planned to head to Manteo NC for a few days in the boat with hopes of exploring the Outer Banks via car but Mother Nature had different ideas. There was a big blow coming and it was forecasted to last several days plus we had to cross the Albemarle Sound, preferably not on a big wind day. After looking at all the options, it made sense to scoot across the sound when the conditions were decent. We scrambled around and changed our car reservations and made alternative marina reservations.

We did NOT want to get stuck at the Alligator River Marina for days on end. It’s basically a gas station on a busy road with a marina behind it … in the middle of NOWHERE. No services to speak of, no easy way to get a car rental and the drone of cars going by the boat was constant. UGH, there would have been mutiny if we had to stay here for days…well, except there was no way to get anywhere – LOL!!! This marina is a necessary stop before crossing the Albemarle Sound or trying to head over to Manteo and is just fine for one night.

As luck would have it, we crossed the Albemarle Sound the next day with 2-3 ft wind waves and long easy rollers, mostly pushing us from our stern. We got into Coinjock Marina with no drama and spent the next six days there. This marina is well run, has a nice restaurant and ships store, laundry, etc. Otherwise, there isn’t much going on there either, kinda in the middle of nowhere also! Most boaters just stop overnight here on the way to Norfolk. The good news is that Dave had rented a car at Enterprise in nearby Elizabeth City. They brought the car to us at the marina, but Dave had to take the driver back to Elizabeth City. The only downside was they weren’t open on the weekends to return the car and didn’t allow after hours return – weird. So, that meant we had to stay until Monday but we were happy to have the wheels to tour the Outer Banks and nearby areas.

Unfortunately, our AC continued to vex us which necessitated a trip back to the Walmart in Elizabeth CIty to buy a portable AC unit. With the main salon AC being unreliable, the pilot house AC could not keep up with the solar load and high heat so it was uncomfortably warm inside. The portable monster unit was easy to get vented out our sliding door…Janky, yes but at least the boat was cool enough to feel good about leaving the pets all day. Fortunately the stateroom AC’s seem to be working okay, so at night we were nice and cool.

Our first day touring the Outer Banks took us to Kitty Hawk. We all agreed that the Wright Brothers Museum was well worth a visit and the ranger talks were also very well done. So much to see there…What was fascinating to me was why the Wright Brother chose this part of NC to conduct their glider flights. They wanted Wind, Sand and Isolation. Kitty Hawk has all three and in the day, it was very remote and isolated. So remote, it was sometimes hard for them to find a boat to take them over there. Isolation meant no prying eyes to steal their ideas and future patents. Why sand you may be wondering ?? So when they crashed it would be soft – and crash they did. Over and Over and Over again. But that did not stop the Wright Brothers, they persevered until they got the design right. OCD geniuses – perhaps!

Sadly, much of the Outer Banks is nothing like what the Wright Brothers experienced. Much of it is now now miles of soulless strip malls, mediocre restaurants, beach houses packed in like sardines and crowed beaches. From Nags Head all the way north to Duck was exactly like this and very disappointing from a scenery aspect. To add to the disappointment, we had the worst BBQ ever that day for lunch – waaaah! We did find a few pretty places and a not too crowed beach to explore, so I am only showing you those pictures.

Our second day exploring the Outer Banks took us south of Nags Head to Manteo and we felt the area was redeemed! Our first stop was at the Pea Island Preserve…WOOHOO… this is what I was hoping to find in the Outer Banks. Pristine, unspoiled beaches, wildlife, birds and sand dunes galore.

From there we drove to Bodie Island Lighthouse and on to Manteo. I loved quaint Manteo, it’s waterfront walk, rustic marinas and scenic beauty. It would have been great to stay here on the boat as originally planned and I would highly recommend that Loopers put this down as a stop if Mother Nature allows!

We found a nice place for lunch in Manteo, strolled along the waterfront and were entertained by a group of young folks, bridge jumping into the cool water. The marinas here are just steps from town and the local Ford car dealerships rents cars.

We also explored inland from Coinjock – taking a drive to the Dismal Swamp State Park. A segment of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the Dismal Swamp Canal, which is fed by Lake Drummond, flows for 22 miles between Virginia and North Carolina. It cuts through the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. 

Before there was a canal, there was swampland. It was Colonel William Byrd II who envisioned something more during the late 1720s. But it would take years for the idea to blossom into action as construction on the man-made waterway wouldn’t begin until the 1790s. 

The goal was to create a viable trade route between the Chesapeake Bay and North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound. It was the first canal that connected the two regions, then came the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal decades later. Now, the Dismal Swamp Canal is part of something bigger — the Intracoastal Waterway — a network of aquatic passageways along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico coasts. 

The Dismal Swamp Canal is the oldest operating waterway in the country. Both the canal and swamp played a huge role in African-American history. Between 1680 and the Civil War-era, the swamp served as a refuge not just for wildlife but for hundreds, if not thousands, of escaped slaves, who lived off the land freely. 

There are two viable routes for boaters to get to Norfolk from North Carolina. We had opted not to take the Dismal Swamp route as the canal depth is dicey for Escapade. The canal is supposedly dredged to 6 feet but is littered with stumps and deadheads just below the surface. We draft 4 foot 9 inches and didn’t want to risk damaging our props. This route is far from dismal, really it is quite beautiful but traveling at idle speed for 20 plus miles might have taken the bloom off the rose!

It was fun to hike around the area, we saw several snakes and a few birds. It was a hot afternoon and we were too late for any decent birding. We also chatted with a few boaters who were spending the night on the free dock at the Dismal Swamp Visitors Center.

On the way back to Coinjock, we stopped at Morris Farm Market – craft beer, live music and fresh produce – that is a trifecta of goodness in my book! This place was recommended by the bartender at Coinjock so he redeemed himself for the awful BBQ place he also recommended!

Elizabeth City, which is up the Albemarle Sound had been on the cruise plan but was also crossed off thanks to the big blow. So why not explore it via car?

A quaint water front town, marketed as the “Harbor of Hospitality”, Elizabeth City has had a long history of shipping due to its location at a narrowed bend of the Pasquotank River. Whew, say that three times fast!!! Founded in 1794, Elizabeth City prospered early on from the Dismal Swamp Canal as a mercantile city. Later it developed industry and other commercial focus. While Elizabeth City still retains extensive waterfront property, it is linked to neighboring counties and cities by contemporary highways and bridges to support other transportation. It also hosts one of the largest United States Coast Guard bases in the nation.

We enjoyed a nice lunch at Hoppin John’s and a warm walk around town. Elizabeth City certainly is hospitable to boaters with three docks offering free moorage for two nights. We need a do over on the Albemarle Sound as there is so much more to see and do in this area.

Our stay was coming to an end, the car was returned Monday and we were hoping the AC repair team was coming. We had plans to have dinner at the Coinjock Marina Restaurant, celebrate Wallys birthday and then skeedaddle on Tuesday. Well, who’d a thunk that Mother Nature had other ideas?? AGAIN!!!

It had been windy off and on the past two days. Apparently, the wind had been blowing water up the C&D Canal, which was where we were headed. Word on the dock was that the water level was too high for two of the swing rail road bridges to open. There are really no other marina’s until after you get past these two bridges so boats were turning around and coming back to Coinjock. We figured all would be well in the morning – NOT.

Dinner was fun and we celebrated Wallys birthday with a huge tomahawk ribeye steak and a fine bottle of Leonetti wine we had stashed onboard. Later in the wee hours of the morning a massive storm came through bringing more wind, rain and a huge electrical storm. I woke up to see light flashing through the stateroom portholes and claps of booming thunder. I LOVE lightening storms at a distance but the furbags were not entertained, Bentley especially … poor buddy was shaking so I sat up with him for awhile.

We got up early on Tuesday, after not good sleep thinking maybe miraculously we could leave but not a creature was stirring, not a boat was on the move – AGAIN!!! The water was now higher than the day before. It had crept under the docks and was flooding the lawn in front of the marina. Not feeling optimistic, Wally made a call to the bridge tender. After at least thirty rings, a human picked up and informed us that “ donna know when da bridge gonna open-wadter too hi-havta wait til da wadter com down. Okay, despite not being able to leave… Wally repeating that back to all of us brought some much needed levity to the day.

So Tuesday was a bit of a lost day, AC dudes were a no show and was told they would be out at 8:30 am on Wednesday. We played cards, read, did Wordle, walked the dock and chatted with other boaters. We enjoyed getting to know Rhonda and Bob on Hawks Landing. We swapped boat stories as our boats are both Carvers, same make but theirs is 45 feet and ours is 53 ft. It was fun touring Hawks Landing and meeting their cat Charlie. It was a bit like ground hogs day as we ate dinner at the restaurant again and asked for our favorite waitress Shelby.

Wednesday morning rolled in and AGAIN, not a creature was stirring, not a boat was on the move. The good news was that the wind had shifted over night, bringing water back down the canal. Word on the dock was maybe by noon “da wadter com down” and “da bridge gonna open”! Well, yippee skippy… the AC dudes also showed up, worked a bit of magic with a descaler and back flush on the salon AC unit. It was as working again but they agreed we also needed a new main water pump as we still couldn’t run more than two units at once without a high pressure failure. We debated having them just install a new pump but the boss/owner somewhere behind the curtain quoted us $2,000 plus installation for a pump we knew we could buy for under $800. So long story short, Captain Handy ordered a new pump and will be installing it in Norfolk.

Meantime, “da water com down” and boats were departing the dock like the great migration. It would be about 40 nautical miles to get to Norfolk but with with three bridges and a lock that only open on a set schedule, this was a tricky run. I had estimated that if we could leave around 1:30 and if the all the cards aligned, we could make the 4:00 pm lock opening before the last bridge scheduled changed for rush hour car traffic. No pressure!!!

So with a cool boat, we made smoke and got underway. It was actually a beautiful cruise, the last of any North Carolina low country and into Virginia we went. As fate would have it, leaving Coinjock late put the pack of boats that were on the dock a long way ahead of us. We had the waterways us all to ourselves. Being in the great migration of boats must have been really stressful. The C & D Canal is narrow and we were so glad we weren’t cueing up, waiting for the bridges to open with a pack of 25 plus boats.

Cruising into Norfolk was surreal after being on the ICW for so long as the landscape is filled with huge commercial dry docks, barges and naval ships. Other than almost being taken out by a tug boat pushing a huge barge, we cruised into Norfolk with no other recreational or commercial boats. That was about 30 seconds of sheer terror when we almost came bow to bow with that big barge. It was a blind corner just as we started under a bridge. Since we were going very slow anyway, Captain Wally put the boat in reverse and did a quick 180 degree turn to starboard. I am here to tell you that tug horn was really loud.

We had a wonderful 2 weeks with our friends Dave and Tanya, another adventure to add to the books! It was a bittersweet goodbye but we’ll see them again in November when we are back on the west coast. It was extra special to have them onboard to celebrate Wally’s birthday!!!!

The other cool thing waiting for us in Norfolk was our SUV Ernie. Our Charleston friend Drake drove him up the day we arrived and thanks to some plane schedule confusion, Drake was waiting for us on the dock at the Tidewater Marina. We were happy to offering him our couch for the night and dinner in the marina restaurant.

Escapade has traveled just over 862 nautical miles on the loop so far. It’s crazy to think that there is still over 5,000 miles to go! We are taking a break here in Norfolk for 2-3 weeks and then we will head out explore the Chesapeake Bay. Stay tuned for more updates as we explore the Norfolk area.