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December 14 -Elizabeth City- the “Harbor of Hospitality” absolutely lives up to it’s name. We left Goat Island at about 7 and continued along, reaching Elizabeth City just a few minutes of 9. We hailed the bridge master to ask for an opening and received a warm welcome to the city from him. Elizabeth City was dubbed the “Harbor of Hospitality” after an impromptu wine and cheese party thrown by a couple of local businessmen back in the 1980’s, and since then has continued the tradition. They have a group called the “Rose Buddies” who continue this tradition by welcoming incoming boaters to the town docks - 14 free slips available for up to 48 hours, and provide information about where to find anything you might want, including directions to the $3 showers a couple of blocks up the street! Given that up until this point we’d been using our shower as a wet locker for all of our foul weather gear, a hot shower with a lot of water pressure sounded great! As we pulled up to the town docks, we saw that the boat we’d passed back at the first lock, another Hunter called “Knot for Shore” was also tied up. The couple aboard “Knot for Shore” John and Pat C. came over to join in the welcoming party. They’ve been living aboard their boat for the past three years, and have been cruising up and down the east coast.
With some information in hand from the locals and from John and Pat, we headed off in search of hot showers and perhaps a little bite to eat.
As always, when we returned to the boat, there were a handful of things we needed to tweak, and a few things that we needed to order (including a circlip for the winch on the port side of the mast - my fixing didn’t go so well as the circlip jumped overboard when I was trying to bend it back into its proper position) and some stuff we needed to have shipped from home, so we made a few phone calls and connected with Captain Don Thomas of Moran, who kindly gave us his address to have things shipped to in Beaufort. By the time all of this was said and done it was approaching 1:30, and as we were talking with John and Pat we learned that our nearest anchorage in this next bit of passage was about 60nm away, too far to make it before dark fell, and with the anchorage being a slightly challenging one, not one we thought it would be wise to attempt - so we made the decision to stay overnight in Elizabeth, and get up really early in the morning to make it to our anchorage. That said, we decided to take advantage of the nearby laundromat (which John and Pat had already scoped out) and they very kindly lent us their pull cart to tote our laundry. Bri and I set off to do laundry, and Mark set off to explore the area a bit (and to get some beers for the boat) with the plan being to meet back at the boat around 5:30, and to head over to the dinner and a movie theater that John and Pat had told us about a couple of blocks away.
We ended up getting back with all of our laundry at just a couple of minutes before 5:30, and I left the guys to sort it and went to stand in line for the tickets. Brian and Mark ran into John and Pat on their way over, so we decided impromptu to all eat together and watch the movie, rather than take two tables. We spent the hour before the movie swapping stories and having a great time, and we all laughed our way through Four Christmases (which I recommend for anyone looking for a good laugh). We all ambled back to the boats and Pat took me onboard their boat to see it. Beautiful. It has a very different, more open layout than our boat, with a spacious aft berth and a really open, beamy salon. As their boat is a Hunter Vision, it has a tremendous mast but no fixed rigging. As I said to Pat, it really feels like a home in their boat, it’s beautifully decorated and just feels really settled and comfortable - a state we haven’t yet really reached! We walked back over to our boat and I gave Pat the tour while the guys stood outside and talked. Pat was really encouraging and supportive, reassuring me that it takes a little while to get settled in and figure out where everything should go so that it works for you, and that it’s different for everyone, just to give it a little time and it would all settle in.
After hugs for the girls, and handshakes for the guys, we all turned in for the night with the plan of getting up early in the AM (5AM to be exact) to head out.