SUMMER BREEZE: Norfolk/Portsmouth, VA Day 32 And The Dismal Swamp, Day 33

Its supposed to be a rainy day here so instead of plugging along the ICW and Dismal Swamp in the rain, we decide to sit here and have a down day. We enjoyed watching the small sailboats with colorful sails in the harbor around us.

But it didn't really rain until late, about 9 PM, Summer Breeze was going in circles around the anchor with the storm. Rocking and rolling. It was fast and furious and that was all.

The Dismal Swamp

aka

Norfolk, Va to (almost) Elizabeth City, NC, Day 33

We weren't going to do the Dismal Swamp but several people told that we should, so we are. In anticipation of 2 locks 😱, 3 bridges to open after we get through the Norfolk bridges, we arise at 5 am.

And we had some beautiful sunrise pics. (I'm never up this early to catch that!)

Entering into the Dismal Swamp Canal....

Weighed anchor at 6 in order to give us a bit of time for the Norfolk area 5 bridges, 3 of which are RR and are we hoping there aren’t any trains in order to get to the 1st lock entering the canal by the 8:30 opening. No trains! Got to the lock with time to spare, so we hovered.

No makeup, wrinkles really showing and some silvers.

Robert, the lock tender and the bridge tender (bridge that is just down the way) is amazing. He jumps in his car and drives to open both for boat traffic. Actually both lock tenders are also the bridge tenders. He gave us all kind of tips and info. Suggested that we don’t stop at the state park, visitor center ☹️ in order to make the last lock opening at 3:30 because “you don’t want to spend the night here as the big black biting flies are here now!”

The area is on the National Historic Register.

This area and lock are very historic.

For more info, click here.

Turns out that George Washington was one of the owners of the property and these locks date back to that time. Actually, this is the 1st lock to be built in the US.

So we mention that we had planned on going to the visitor center to fill our water tanks, so Robert pulls his hose out and we are now lip lapping full! I can wash my hair and underwear tonight! 😀
(The things I do and look forward to now....)

He has conch shells that boaters bring to him from the islands and he is very good!

Click here if the video doesn't open. He is great!

Bella is helping.

The lock filling with water (8')

We averaged about 3-4’ of water under our keel the whole way and we bumped on logs a bunch of times in the Dismal Swamp "canal". Not a good feeling. We were told to stay in the center of the canal as it is very narrow. Hard to do when you have north and south traffic!

This is how close we have to be to pass...

This guy is really big and wide. He was taking up more than his side of the narrow canal.

There is also a road beside some parts of the canal with picnic tables here and there. We hear the state park is a great place to visit.

We got to the 2nd lock 10 minutes past the opening time so we called the lock tender to say that we were around for the next opening 2 hrs later but he said to come on, he would open for us now. He hadn’t opened for anyone at the scheduled time and Robert from the first lock had called him to say we were on the way. Tim was great also and we do appreciate him opening for us.

Thank you Tim!

There is also a lot of duckweed in the canal which is very pretty and abstract looking but not good for our sea strainers. Those are definitely getting checked tonight!

We anchored behind Goat Island in the Pasquotank River about 4 pm and it was time for the afternoon storms.

Below in red is the Dismal Swamp route and the black one is the Virginia Cut route which we took on the way up.