Saturday, May 12, 2018
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| Beverly Hall |
Today was the only day of this tour with a reasonable start time! We had the Hampton Inn's lobby buffet breakfast at our leisure. A few days before the trip departed we were emailed with a list of options for our free morning in Edenton this morning. We chose a 9:30am private home tour of
Beverly Hall with
Sambo Dixon. That meant we had to be on the 9am bus to shuttle to downton Edenton, checked out of the hotel and with our luggage loaded. It also meant we couldn't do anything else in Edenton. We were happy with our choice. All the other choices were things anyone visiting Edenton could do at any time. Not like visiting a private home with the owner guiding, that was special.
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| Clay's lunch |
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| Debbie's lunch |
Lunch was a box lunch catered to the
Edenton Lighthouse. It began at 11am. We finished our tour and walked down there in good time so we visited the
Penelope Barker House to kill time. By the time we got back to the lighthouse, lunch tables were set up and lunches were out for pickup. You could pick a box by the type of sandwich inside, a bag of chips of some kind and a cold beverage from a cooler. You could take your lunch wherever you liked. We noticed as we walked over that a large number of passengers had taken theirs aboard the Belle of Washington already. All aboard is 1:15pm for 1:30pm departure. We sat at one of the tables set on the shady side of the lighthouse porch. After lunch, we entered the lighthouse for a guided tour that was included in our boat tour.
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| Clay atop the lighthouse w/Belle of Washington at dock in Edenton |
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| Belle of Washington docked in Edenton, NC |
When we left the lighthouse, we gave up in the heat of the mid-day sun and boarded the Belle of Washington to claim our seats from near where we sat yesterday. When the final passenger returned we departed about 15-20 minutes early.
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| 1886 Roanoke River Lighthouse at Edenton, NC |
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| Sailing the Roanoke River |
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| CSS Albemarle replica |
Today we are sailing to
Plymouth. If you look at the
map, that meant a sail into the
Roanoke River. The speakers were speaking, but we couldn't hear them upstairs without standing directly under a speaker. As we neared Plymouth we were charged, chased and fired upon by the
CSS Albemarle. Of course, the actual ship is long gone, this one is a
3/8 scale replica. It was a bit of excitement that enlivened our quiet cruise. Clay shot a lot of cellphone video but never captured a shot being fired to his vexation.
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| Smoke from a cannon shot by CSS Albemarle |
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| Open bar |
The Belle of Washington operators announced that they had planned to offer a cash bar this afternoon, but decided to put on a free spread as a courtesy to make up for some problems like lateness and toilets not working for a while. It was welcomed, more so than the cash bar would have been. They had snacks, sodas and wine as well.
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| Plymouth, NC awaits |
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| Clay's bear meat skewer and punch |
The town of Plymouth also fired a shore side cannon at us as we arrived. We were a bit late again and the welcome was re-organized. Blackbeard was there. They had cold punch and a tray of snacks made of small skewers of bear meat, blackberry and mozzarella.
They let us self-divide into groups for a tour of
Port o' Plymouth Museum,
NC Black Bear HQ, and everyone ended at the
Maritime Museum where the locals put on a BBQ dinner buffet for us. We had actually visited Plymouth twice before! I skipped the Port o' Plymouth Museum tour for time searching the
fossil pit out front which was not here when we visited before. The sign advertised shark teeth but no luck for me! We decided we'd like to return sometime to try to
see bears or take a
bear tour or
two. Our
last trip was for
the birds. We learned that Plymouth now has a
bear festival. Dinner was good and
Bland Simpson performed a few songs for us. Before the end of the trip, Bland will give each tour participant a CD of the
Red Clay Ramblers' Old North State. A nice touch.
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| Debbie in disguise |
After dinner and entertainment, the bus picked us up and took us to the Holiday Inn Express for the night. This is the same place we stayed before when we came for the bird migration. They didn't have 8 Tesla charging stations then, but the Bojangles out front was the same. Tomorrow we have a very early start to our final day.
