When you have an expectation of a place it is not usually what you get. Oriental was a lovely town with the friendliest people we have encountered but what we had expected didn't materialize. So much for expectations.
By chance we met up with Jerry & Molly Grub, whom we had met in Marathon. They have a condo in Oriental and graciously invited us to dinner with their friends and we had a wonderful night. So the stop was way more than worth it. In the end people, not places are what it is all about.
Oriental is known as the Sail Capital of North Carolina....more sailboats than residents. So I guess we were a little out of our element, but hey, a boat is a boat! ......and we could get under the 43' bridge which most sailboats can't, so we got a nice place to anchor. Well, kind of nice, it WAS Memorial Day weekend and it ended up being the Indianapolis 500 for small boats... but it was ok, very quiet at night which is all that counts.
We left at 7:30 Sunday for the trip up the Pungo River...what a never ending body of water that is!! Last night we anchored at the mouth of the Pungo Alligator River Canal. A Corp of Engineers Cut for the ICW. 22 miles of NOTHING and 22 miles seems forever at 7 miles per hour, a grown woman asking are we there yet is not pretty!
We did see a Bald Eagle in a tree though. That is a first for the trip.
After the canal we did another 20 miles in the Alligator River which is very wide and very desolate. We had a few boats pass us (I almost said "we passed a few boats" but that would be wish full thinking.) but the traffic is very light at this time of year. All the snowbirds returned in April.
We are now anchored in the Little Alligator River heading into the Abelmarle Sound. We went for a dinghy ride and it really reminded us of the St. Clair River Flats, a lot of marsh and cottages on the water only accessible by water and duck blinds all over the place.
Tomorrow we leave early for Elizabeth City and up the Dismal Swamp Route for the Chesapeake. We are less than 100 miles from Norfolk (mile 0 on the ICW) now. Yeah Us!!
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