Washington NC

We have never traveled to any of the small towns off the AICW so when we looked at places to go the town of Washington, NC looked very interesting. We left the Neuse River and turned up the Pamlico River- I thought we had measured out the distance but we didn't realize it was an additional 30 miles off the ICW- but we had some added motivation to get there! The winds continued to pick up as we went up the river- but fortunately they were following seas. We followed a 42' Nordic Tug through the railroad bridge and we heard him calling in to the marina that he had a reservation for the next three nights. The dock attendants knew nothing about his arrival (but then again they didn't know about us even though I had made the reservation earlier in the week!) The tricky part of the tug docking is he was single handling and hadn't set up any lines or fenders so he needed them to basically "catch" his boat. They asked him to circle around the harbor and at least put on a mid-line they could grab. We stayed back as they definitely had their hands full! Well, they were unable to get him into a slip so they put him on the same tee head that we were supposed to be put on (by ourselves). Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of room left for us- so from our gate back we were basically hanging over the end of the dock! They assured me that it would be fine because none of the other boats in the slips ever leave! Oh well, we were safely tied to the docks anticipating when the now Tropical Storm Bonnie was supposed to hit!

In the morning, we took a walk around the small town and sadly we found it to be like a lot of the small southern towns we had visited.A lot of the store fronts were closed and not a lot of places in town for people to live. But the people were so very friendly- no one passed us without saying Good Morning! What a nice change from some of the places we visited in Florida! We found a Nature Preserve where there were a ton of cool box turtles and even some larger terrapins lived. They had planted a lot of water lily's and it was so cool to see the turtles sunning themselves on the pads. The preserve was a large part of the waterfront and the boardwalk was awesome!

Our motivation to get to Washington was we were finally going to get to see our son Ben-who was going to drive down from PA the next day. Our credit card had been hacked for the fourth time (second time since starting the Loop) and Ben thought it was important to get them to us! Now the practical mother thought it was not such a great idea as he would have to drive 8 hours just to spend the afternoon (and I ALWAYS worry when he is driving)- but the true mom in me was thrilled! I didn't realize how very much I had missed Ben until I actually got to lay eyes on him. He brought my "grandpuppy" Titan with him. While it was "nice" to see Ttian, it added another "layer" of excitement on the boat. Just picture a 70 pound, three year old "puppy" getting out of a truck after 8 hours of travel and getting to go into a very small, confined space of the boat. It certainly was amusing- from Titan trying to jump off the boat to get to Ben, knocking our step into the water, and leaping from the table to the chair trying to look out both sides of the boat- we were all kind of exhausted. For that reason and not knowing how Titan would be by himself- I got to have Ben all to myself over lunch! Dave said that Titan "eventually" calmed down- well sort of! All in all- while it was a "getaway" for Ben- my heart was smiling big again! Ben drove "home" to Maryland from here- another 5 hours! He made great time and I hardly even worried at all- okay just a little!

The New Bern bridge at daybreak as we were waiting for it to open

We fly our AGLCA burgee proudly!

Sunset in Washington, NC

Yay, Ben and Titan are here! You can see how excited Titan was to get out of that truck!

Yes, he would even leap up on the freezer box on the bridge. Titan is an amazing athlete!

One of the older terrapins in the preserve

Charter sailboat that goes out 3 times a day from Washington Harbor

Same charter sailboat coming in from their sunset cruise

Turtle Motel