The Gem of North Carolina.

Well, some of you might already be aware that we left Norfolk And headed down the dismal swamp. I love the dismal swamp and it is truly beautiful however, this time it had its challenges. When we arrived in the swamp we were a bit delayed because we went to do our shopping and by the time we got to Welcome center it was dark… Dismal swamp dark. There were four other boats there and So we had to raft up with one of them in the dark. Thankfully there was no wind or tide to push us the wrong way.

We all left in the early morning and there was a beautiful mist and eerie ness about. There was also a lot of duck weed and our engine got clogged up. We had to get tow boat to get us out.

I called Larry of Lamb’s Marina and told him our plight and he arranged to have a mechanic come and help us as soon as we arrived. The blockage was fixed in no time his charge was minuscule.

It was the night for a ‘try out’ on Larry’s seafood restaurant and Larry said that because we had had a rotten day he was treating us to dinner. It was a real treat. The clam chowder was the best I’ve ever had and flounder had been caught that day. The last time I was at Larry’s marina he got Jim to take me to the library to get stuff I wanted copied. Jim dropped me off and waited for me and we had great craic. The marina is so friendly and very reasonable. There are city docks in Elizabeth city but they are difficult to get into and there’s no electricity or water. It was definitely worth the small price for the marina.

We left Elizabeth City and were motor sailing and when I stopped the engine to sail, it set off an oil alert. There was an oil leak and we filled four quarts of oil from the pan. The engine only holds 5. We found out that the engine computer which had broken brackets from when the engine was first put in had fallen on top of the oil filter and pierced it. We managed to clean oil up and fix it within the hour. Later that night we discovered there was no water. At least we have bottles for the coffee in the am so we didn’t let it dampen our spirits. And played a wee round of 7 card stud poker. You can see from the face expression on the photo who cleaned us out.

Today I noticed the accelerator wasn’t going further than 2000 rpm’s. I was getting tired of this but Pat realized that the fix we had put in to attach the computer was blocking the movement on the accelerator. We think we’re all fixed now. Fingers crossed.