| The Great American Loop #60 |
 Dave Bernheisel  Click on the link above for more information. Basically, Dave says, they're boating up the coast to NY, then up the Hudson to Troy, across the Erie Canal, through the Great Lakes, by Chicago, down the Mississippi, around Florida and home. No small journey, eh?
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On the Great American Loop
Moving northward again
(04.21) We're back in action with a new oil cooler. The repair was completed mid afternoon on 04.18 and we ran on up to Beaufort, North Carolina to test it out. It seems fine.
Beaufort looks like a nice, quaint little town. It is next to Morehead City, which is larger, more commercial, and less charming. Despite Beaufort being nicer it didn't do us any good as we arrived in the rain and not much in the mood to do the sights. Early the next morning we were on our way to Belhaven.
The run to Belhaven included a 20-mile stretch out in the Neuse River where the wind and seas had a good shot at us. It was a rough ride but not as bad as some others.
In Belhaven it was time to decompress a bit. After putting Going There in a slip and taking care of daily maintenance chores, we opted for dinner in the River Forest Manor, a beautiful century-old mansion associated with the marina.
The house, built by a lumber & railroad tycoon, was huge and gorgeous with beautiful woodwork, cut glass. and all of the other things that the wealthy of that era could want. The dinner was edible and the waitress did her best under trying circumstances. Nice house!
Then, on Easter Sunday morning it was off again. It would be a long day but we hoped for Elizabeth City, eighty-five miles up the route. As we turned north into the Alligator River, the old north wind was there again. After fifteen miles of taking a beating we ran into a marina just north of the Route #64 bridge. Had we gone on to Elizabeth City, the wind would have continued to build and we would have been crossing Albemarle Sound when it looked like a washing machine.
Then, our plan for today was to get an early start and cross the Sound before the wind kicked up. After a couple of hours at the dock in Elizabeth City we would go on through the first Dismal Swamp lock and spend the night at the visitor's center just before the Virginia line. While a great plan, we woke up to a thick fog with zero visibility out over the water.
That was plan A and I don't have a plan B. So, now we stand around on the dock commiserating with all of the other boaters. The problem is that as the fog lifts, the wind will start again; I think I've seen this movie before.
As the trip winds down this becomes more of a chore. I'm getting into the mentality of a delivery captain -- get this boat on down the road.
The bunch of boaters on the dock agreed that we will go at 11 this morning regardless -- well almost. So, it's time to send this and get Big Blue purrring again.
More later, and I'll promise to be more upbeat in the next dispatch.
Dave & Wann |
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