On Fri, 13 Jun 2014 17:11:21 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

His post are on-topic, informative and useful to others contemplating
the same lifestyle pursuit. Very appropriate for a boating newsgroup,
don'tcha think?

===

Thanks for the kind words. In that spirit I will offer up a boating
adventure that we had today, one that is almost in Harry's back yard
but not quite. As most of you know we are in the process of bringing
the trawler north for the summer. The day before yesterday we were
in the vicinity of Beaufort, NC and thinking about how we would
proceed from there. The traditional route is up through Albemarle
Sound, into the North River, past Coinjock Marina and on up through
something called the "Virginia Cut" into Norfolk at the southern end
of Chesapeake Bay. Having done that a number of times, and having
always been intrigued by stories about the Great Dismal Swamp, we
decided to divert to Elizabeth City, NC and take the alternate route.

After anchoring just south of there last night, we proceeded north
this morning up the beautiful Pasquotank River which leads eventually
to a lock at South Mills, NC. The lock lifts you up 8 feet into the
southern end of the Dismal Swamp Canal. The canal runs adjacent to
the east side of the Great Dismal Swamp which is a vast wilderness
area originally surveyed by George Washington early in his career.
Although many parts of the canal are very scenic the overall
experience is somewhat marred by the traffic noise coming from route
17 just to the east. There is also a lot of dead, submerged timber
which presents a hazzard to deep draft boats. We stopped counting
log strikes after a while but it was at least 20 - hopefully no damage
but it will take another day or two of runnning before we'll know for
sure. Stay tuned. Meanwhile we'll head into Norfolk tomorrow
morning, past the vast array of navy ships which are docked there, and
on up into Chesapeake Bay.

http://tinyurl.com/waynebspottrack