Day 55

Early departure…well I guess technically it was a late departures for sailors >_> but it was early lol at 8am.
So today we did 2 locks. I thought papa said there were no more! But they weren’t bad dropping only 6’ and 8’. Just after the first lock we waited with about 5 other boats for the bridge, one of which being Banshee =], and we headed down the Dismal swamp in single file, kinda like kindergarten lol. Papa decided this would be a good time for a history lesson and pointed out that way back in the mid 1800s this swamp was a hideout for runaway slaves.
In between the 2 locks was the visitors center, just after the Virginia/Carolina border, we rafted off of Banshee. Here papa and I headed up to the check out the center and get some books about the waterways. Just outside of the welcome centre was a small cotton field and Papa decided we should play slaves today and pick cotton lol (he even tried to take down a tree later). We also noted that the center was multifunctional, taking care of not only marine traffic but the traffic from the I-17 that our chart plotter thought we were on lmao. As Gama said it’s such a great tool either telling us that we’re on a highway or in the middle of land!
We left Banshee at the welcome center and headed on to the next lock, meeting up with Southern Cross and 4 other boats just outside the bridge before it. We locked through and again headed down the swamp to Elizabeth City in single file.
On the way I was down below making little pizzas for papa and myself when the boat made a huge jolt and there was the sound of wood and glass breaking! I rushed up the companionway to find tree limbs everywhere! Papa ran into an overhanging tree! Once it was determined that we were ok I went below to shut the fridge and turn off the propane, before helping Grama clean up. We even had limbs stuck in the shrouds lol Papa didn’t want me to take pictures and Grama got the big limb out but later when papa went out to destroy the rest of the evidence Grama told me I had to take a pic lmao.
We arrived just 9mins after the Elizabeth City bridge opened and had to wait 51mins for it to open again due to rush hour =[ so we missed the Elizabeth City’s famous cheese and wine party that they hold whenever 5 or more new boats come in to the town. There was no room at the town dock for us to tie up but we tied to a wall nearby.
We invited Karen and Denis over for happy hour and had a very chilly night!

Niki