We both slept soundly last night as we were very tired, and again, sunrise came too soon - not because of any tequila either. We came into town with intentions of going to the Carolina Theater and Grill. This is the place where you sit down for dinner and are served, and then you spin in your chairs and watch a movie on the big screen. Unfortunately, the economy claimed another victim and it is no longer in business. We had not planned for dinner on the boat so hadn't thawed anything for dinner, so Chef David made chicken cordon blu out of some leftover chicken, VT cheddar cheese, and minced meat. And it was actually very good. Toss in a baked potato and it was a real feast.

But before that happened, David was watching a man and woman fishing on a boat tied up to a peer and applauded them catching a catfish. She eventually put it in a bucket and brought it over to us as a gift. David was so excited he jumped up out of the cockpit and banged his big toe on the winch, splitting his toenail down the middle and mostly ripping half of it off. He was so intent on getting that fish that other than uttering an expletive, he didn't even notice what he had done at the time. By the time he got to the bow, two couples stopped by to talk and between the five people, David was holding court and laughing his ass off. When they finally left, he realized he had been bleeding all over the deck from his toe. But he had a fish to clean. So he came back to the cockpit and I doctored him up and he was about to go back to the bow to clean his fish when he remembered he had some redneck cordon blu to prepare. So he raced down to the galley to get that going, and then moved forward with great anticipation to clean his fish. Just then, a local stopped by and suggested he might want to think twice about eating his prize, given that the town sewage emptied right where the fish was caught. The lovely lady, whose ONE front tooth was quite prominent, arrived with another fish for Dave. He declined, gave her the first fish back, and that was the end of that episode. She was a nice lady but a typical redneck country girl, not used to the "city" stuff (her words) and other than having the hots for David, she was just fine.

We are traveling through the Great Dismal Swamp as I write this and will be anchoring somewhere in the Norfolk, VA area tonight. We traversed the first of two locks and while waiting for the water to rise, David of course started a conversation with the lock master about hunting dogs. I was about to tell him to end it as we were going to be spending the night there if he didn't but did not have to in the end. David needs to come out of his shell and learn to meet new people ...