Goat Island, NC

Not to tempt fate, but Alberto was kind of a non-event. We saw winds about 20 knots, occasional gusts to 30 knots, and lots of rain. Kevin had done a lot of research and picked us a pretty good hidey-hole at South Lake, we listened to the weather and areas only five miles away were reporting wind gusts to 43 knots. So we had a pretty good spot. Our only complaint would be the pesky mosquitoes. They waited until dusk to begin their assault on our boat. It was creepy, we had the windows and door open and you could see them swarming and hovering outside the screens, thousands of them, just waiting for us to open the screen door. Problem was, it was going to rain and one of us had to go outside to close the hatches. So Kevin got the OFF! and sprayed a preliminary cloud through the screen door to get them to retreat. Then, using the OFF! he laid down cover fire for the troops (me) as they darted outside into the onslaught of the enemy. Holding my breath (mosquitoes seek out the carbon dioxide) I slammed the hatches down and raced for the door as Kevin sprayed one last machine gun (er, OFF!) burst to get me back in through the door. The next morning, the cockpit was littered with hundreds of casualties. Ew.

We are now at Goat Island just outside the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. We plan to enter the canal tomorrow (they have to lock you through) and hopefully spend a night at their visitor's center which has a free dock. We went through the canal last fall and it was freezing at the time. Now the temperature is mild, and there is this amazingly sweet smell coming from the swamp. Yeah, I know, you'd think it would reek, but there are all these waterlilies all over the place and I think some of the trees must be sending out some kind of subtle perfume. It's actually really pleasant. Of course dusk hasn't come yet, so we have yet to discover if there are as many mosquitoes here as there were in South Lake.