Deltaville! 2400 miles!

We enjoyed Elizabeth City, although we need to remember to get there some day besides Sunday…everything except one restaurant is closed on Sunday. We did get to that one restaurant and had a nice dinner with friends from Canada, Maria and Maurice.

They keep their boat in Deltaville during the summer, so we saw them for dinner tonight before they leave for Canada. Here is their boat going through the Elizabeth City bridge.
It was a perfect day for the trip up the Pasquatank River, a very curvy, undeveloped river which leads to the Great Dismal Swamp – clean and completely calm. Just look at the reflections in the still waters.
We also saw lots of bird life, a cottonmouth snake in the water (he aggressively turned towards the boat rather than retreating), and a small beaver paddling steadily across the narrow waters.

We made a brief stop at the NC Visitors Center and walked some of the trails at the North Carolina Great Dismal Swamp State Park, across the canal.

After our break, we continued up the Great Dismal Swamp Canal, in the still of the evening.

We went as far as the Deep Creek Bridge, the northern bridge/lock combination of the Dismal Swamp Canal. We had to wait for an opening at 8:30AM the next morning.

Next stop, Norfolk, to visit our sister-in-law Judy. It was a great visit, including a wonderful home cooked dinner! Of course, Norfolk has the usual huge navy ships! Always amazing to see.

We hoped to make Deltaville on Wednesday, but the winds picked up to over 30 knots, so we ducked into the Mobjack Bay and spent the afternoon and night in the shelter of the North River.

Next day - those icons of the Chesapeake - Crab boats!! We are definitely back in the Chesapeake Bay!

And another Chesapeake icon, Wolftrap Lighthouse.
We arrived in Deltaville around noon, got a few things off the boat, and had her pulled and put "on the hard" for the next few weeks. Here she is, being carefully moved from the water to her place on land. See that brown "moustache"? That's from the acid in the waters from the cyprus trees in the Dismal Swamp. I'm TOLD that it'll easily remove with vinegar. We shall see...

So….2500 miles round trip. To put it in perspective, At 6 knots, that's over 400 hours. Driving a car at 60 mph, that would be a 24,000 mile trip. What a wonderful trip it was! It was a marvelous experience that exceeded our expectations. We saw beautiful places and met great friends. As we returned to the Chesapeake, we marveled at far we'd gone, how much we'd seen, done, learned and experienced since we'd left. We look forward to doing it again next fall. Our plans are still to head for Maine in the early summer, an 1800 mile circle last year. We’re looking forward to it already, but our main focus now is seeing all of our family and friends that we've missed so much. See you all soon!!!!