It is a very grey day with winds gusting 36K. We decide to leave anyway - a couple of drenched cruisers kindly loose our lines and from the City Docks at Elizabeth City we continue up the narrowing and snaking course of the upper Pasquotank River for another fifteen miles to the South Mills Lock where we enter the bottom end of the Great Dismal Swamp.

Actually, the day wasn't so bad - the high wooded banks gave us some respite from the blasts and it was very warm, waterproofs were on, then off, then on again. The rain was the temperature of bathwater - we were saturated - dripping t-shirts and wet hair we entered the lock with three other boats - they looked in remarkably similar condition to us!

The gates close behind us and I make a cup of tea as slowly the water level rises eight feet.

This picture of William as we wait outside the lock gates for the scheduled opening - there are only four every day.