No Pungos...

Belhaven, NC

...but a deer swimming across the canal and lots of great blue herons, a huge eagle, and a half dozen snowy egrets along the Albermarle and Pungo Rivers Canal.

The white dots are Snowy Egrets

We crossed under the Alligator River Bridge around 7:30 this morning, following our backdoor neighbor boat since they travel faster than we do. The trip down the Alligator River through the canal and into the Pungo River was filled with memories from our last/first Grace cruise.  Memories: spending the night on the hook in the Alligator River and watching stars filling up and falling out of the sky. I slept out on the aft deck for awhile; my joke about "not even seeing a pungo", never mind bears or deer as the waterman guide promised, and then a bear and 2 cubs swam across the canal in front of us; entering the very wide, rather shallow Pungo river in a pretty large chop and being really scared about being in open water after time in the sedate, narrow, comfortable canal.

Entering the Alligator & Pungo Rivers Canal

The day was beautiful as one can see from photos. A deer swam across our bow and climbed out of the water into the snow. A big white tailed deer but my photo was too far away to be interesting. The deer's head looked like a muskrat or something but then the body appeared! 

David took a nap on the floor, Amelia on the seat, while I shepherded us through a broad part of the canal. In some places the fallen tree stumps encroach. We have to keep steering even though the canal looks relatively straight and the water is deep in the center. Those stumps crowd toward the center.

Farther along there are what might be wanna-be wilderness developments or RV parks - lots of land, docks, a "club house" or owner's large house but nothing else. Wrong season?

And the boat was here two years ago. It is in demise.

Such beauty. A boring passage through the canal. Boring is better than fearful but boring is not good. I read a bit while David was at the helm but also want to, feel the need to, stay alert and check in regularly. I did finish my biography of Fredrick Douglas. And I danced around the pilot house a bit. We made up new words to the song "Wade in the Water": Stay in the middle, stay in the middle, sailors. Stay in the middle, and you won't run into the stumps"...or something like that.  Whatever, to keep each other entertained and active and alert enough. But boring.

I've been thinking about economic class differences and assumptions; how I engage with people who I assume are different economic "class" than me. In Norfolk we were berthed beside a small, rough looking (pealing paint, lots of stuff in cockpit, untidy decks) boat. I was polite and sort of chatty with the man and woman on board but didn't really want to share much about myself or know much about them. Then I watched or felt a similar response from a couple we met later. They were well put together, on a more expensive boat and were neatly dressed down to matching jackets. We, on the other hand, were in our work jeans and vests, the clothes we'd wear in the boat shed when we were changing the oil. And our aft deck was cluttered and our dinghy deflated. Our more put together buddies were a little reluctant to fully engage with us.  In this second case we somehow passed some "test" at least temporarily, perhaps the necessity of being in difficult circumstances together (pretty isolated in a winter storm), and enjoyed each other...through those circumstances.  Hmmm. Maybe we really didn't have anything to talk about with the Norfolk couple. Maybe we really don't have much in common with the "put together" couple. But....we don't really know since we have let difference in life-style (?) impede our getting to know one another. Hmmm, again. I hope I'll change some of my behavior since I'm noticing this tendency in me and in others. Cues are important. How else would we choose who to use our time with? But......

David and I had a tiff about how I abandoned the helm when he gave me a direction coming into the Belhaven dock. He was correct in the direction and my response to his directive was dangerous and completely inappropriate. I hope to never be so pissy and tight again. I was tired, nervous and ... done. It has been an arduous journey these past 5 weeks. It is getting easier as we get to longer days and warmer weather, and I'm glad to be with David and out of Maine. Days and moments of levity and joy and love, yes, but this isn't a vacation...yet. It's work and, for me, not creative work. Guess this is life.

Big trip to the grocery store thanks to Dianna from the Chamber of Commerce, then a beer in the local tavern before coming home for dinner. I just looked out and the stars are brilliant over this sweet town. Perhaps that will help the townspeople recover from the tragic, recent death of a local boat captain.