Day 2-152 We "survived" the Great Dismal Swamp

We started about 7:00 am from the Visitor's Center for a trip of 27.2 miles to Norfolk, VA.

The chartplotter predicted a trip of only 3 hours and 23 minutes, but our expectations were more realistic since we had to keep the speed down to about 5 mph. We had the lock/bridge combination at the north end of the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. Except for a few sharp bends, the view ahead was always pretty much the same. You can see some ripples on the right hand (east) side, which is one of many small drainage ditches that enter the canal.

The view of the banks of the canal was ever changing. It is still early Spring here, but we did see some redbuds and other flowering trees and bushes.

A short distance north of the Visitor's Center, we passed this sign and officially added another state to our list. The canal is shallow but supposedly maintained at a depth of 6 feet. Our official draft is 4 feet, but the actual draft varies with fuel, water, etc. We did bump twice during our first day in the canal (5 miles), but we did not bump anything today in the last 17 miles. The "bumps" are usually sunken logs that may (or may not) be on the bottom. We had no boats ahead of us today to stir up logs off the bottom so we were probably just lucky...

As I said yesterday there is a bike/walk/run path along the eastern side and a highway beyond that. Since the foliage is not completely leafed out, we could see some of the path and highway. There was a half marathon going on this morning. It was a great day for the runners/walkers as both the weather and the bugs (or lack there of) cooperated. This photo of a water station is the best one that we got through the growth. We tooted out horn (sounds like an air horn on a semi) several times and got lots of waves as we passed. The Admiral was on the aft end of the flybridge yelling and clapping for the runners.

Access to any farms on the western side of the canal is very limited by the presence of the canal although we did pass one farmer's private bridge that could roll out and span the canal. It looked very heavy duty like it could support grain hauling semi trucks full of grain.







We did pass this interesting sign on the western side... "Swamp Commander" conjures up all kinds of red-neck images in my mind, but there were no people visible around the several buildings.

Finally after about 3.5 hours we reached the bridge/lock combination at the official northern end of the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. We were about a half hour early so I got to practice "station keeping" in a gentle breeze in the narrow canal. For a half hour we saw lots of low speeds, including some of these at 0.0 mph. Then we got the bad news that we would have to wait for a boat that was locking through from the north before we could transit both the bridge and the lock. Meanwhile, even the Admiral took her had at the helm. So, we both got in some "unexpected" quality time at the helm.

Finally it was our turn along with a sailboat that had apparently spent the night at a small dock there. After passing safely through the bridge (photo), the bridge tender puts on his lock tender hat and drives a half mile to the lock. More "good" news... The bridge/lock tenders truck would not start. So, he and his dog walked the half mile to the lock while I practiced more station keeping.  The tender is "Robert", and he is something of a local legend. He is very chatty and full of information.

The normally slow process took nearly two hours, but we have learned to leave plenty of extra time for the inevitable unexpected delays. A mile or so after the lock, we entered the main channel through Norfolk, Hampton Roads and Portsmouth. After more than two weeks with relatively little civilization, it was quite a change to have 6 bridges in 5 miles with lots of  car, truck, train and boat traffic. All of a sudden it seemed very LOUD.

Of course, there were Navy ships everywhere with many of them under construction as well as undergoing repair or modifications. It was an awesome sight, but I will wait for another day for more ship pictures. We are right downtown in Norfolk with a mall and an 18 screen cinema only 4 blocks away. As you know, we are great movie buffs, and tonight we are going to see "Draft Day". Whoop.