Thursday, November 19, 2009 Norfolk VA to Dismal Swamp NC

Hospital Point, Norfolk Virginia (N36o50.658 x W76o17.979) to
The Dismal Swamp Visitor Center North Carolina (N36o30.396 W76o21.360)

We got our anchor up at 9:45am and got through the bridges with no problem this morning. The one bridge waited for us to come through – we were the last in line behind 3 tugs and a mega yacht. We could see traffic backing up and turned up the speed to almost 3500 rpms and were going at 7.1 knots. The bridge tender gave us a salute as we came past his shed so I blew him a big kiss and got a big grin and wave in return. Then the whistle blew a warning that the gate was coming back down.

We knew we weren’t going to make the Deep Creek Lock for the 11:00 opening (they open at 8:30am, 11:00am, 1:30pm and 3:30pm) but had a nice leisurely anchor in front of the lock and waited for his 1:30pm opening.

Deep Creek Lock is the northern end of the Dismal Swamp Canal off the Elizabeth River. There’s another lock to the south at South Mills, NC and the two locks help to maintain the depth of the water to 6 feet in the canal. The source of the water that feeds into the canal is from Lake Drummond. The Dismal Canal is the oldest continually operating “hand-dug” waterway in the country and runs about 22 miles along the Dismal Swamp. It connects the Elizabeth River in Virginia and the Pasquotank River in North Carolina and is quite a historic landmark. The Dismal swamp at one time covered over 2220 miles and is one of the few places on the N. American Continent where peat (precursor of coal) is still being formed. Once a huge treasure trove of formidable swamp it is now about 600 square miles in size. It still contains a varied assortment of insects, mammals and plants and I’ve been told there are over 200 species of birds that still inhabit the Dismal (along with black bear, deer, bobcat, otters, frogs, turtles, etc.).

The bridge/lock tender opened the lock for us so we were able to tie up to the lock wall. Once the lock doors close, the chamber floods to lift the boats up 9 feet to reach the same level of the water on the other side of the lock. At the other end the lock tender drains the water from that lock to lower us back to the level of the river/swamp on the other side of the South Mills Lock.

The lock tender got us in the lock a little after 1:00pm. He asked us if this was the first time we’d come through the Dismal Swamp and we told him “yes. We’d decided since they’d had flood conditions recently that it seemed a good time for us to come through, so there’d be enough water so we wouldn’t run aground.” He asked, “What do you draw (ie what is the depth of your boat)? “5.8 feet.” “Oh oh…” “What? What???” “Ewww, oh nooo…” To late now, we’re in the lock. He told us to keep our eyes open, that we’d bump because there’d been a lot of high water so there’d probably be a lot of debris. “Keep your eyes open.”

We moseyed along between 3-4 knots until about 3pm when we figured out that at that rate we wouldn’t make the visitor’s center (where we planned on tying up to the wall for the night) before dark and we really didn’t want to transit the canal in the dark (sunset is at 4:47pm) so we turned the speed up to 5-6 knots.

Once we approached the Virginia and N. Carolina border I was all alert looking for the infamous Dismal Swamp Roadhouse built in 1802 and the Lake Drummond Hotel (also called the Halfway House established in 1829). Both were popular but infamous places. Lovers wanting to take advantage of N. Carolina marriage laws would meet at one or the other place; fugitives seeking the isolation of the swamp would also collect here along with other shady characters that were fleeing justice. Because the “Halfway House” was built on the border of Virginia and North Carolina, if the law came looking for them in one state, they’d just shift sides to the other state where the lawmen could do nothing about it and the patrons wouldn’t allow it if they tried. Both houses were notorious for sites of duels, lover’s trysts and outlaws hiding in the swamps. Edgar Allen Poe was reputed to have written “The Raven” at the Halfway House. I kept my vigilance at the bow of the boat, ever ready for that camera op that never came. I’d seen pictures of the places but there was nothing along the canal. I was bummed that I couldn’t capture a picture of it with my own camera it looked like a great old building in the pictures I’ve seen of it. Oh well… The scenery is lovely.

It’s a much prettier route than the Virginia Cut where all the larger powerboats are transiting in a hurry and waking the slower sailboats (like us). Somebody around here is burning leaves or wood and it smells good. The eek, eek, eek, and tweet of a bird high in one of the tall pines draws my attention towards the treetops lit by the sun as our mast seems to part the trees along this narrow, shallow canal. Turtles sit on fallen tree trunks that lay or float in the tannin stained water, basking in the remaining light, as the sun gets lower in the sky. I look at the depth sounder and it registers between 5.5 – 9 feet. I know that our transducer sits about a foot and a half below the water level and feel assured that we still have a foot of water under our keel, but my stomach still lurches when I see that 6 ft. mark and lower. We continue to maneuver around the floating logs and trunks left behind from the recent storms and finally make the Visitor’s Center at 5pm just after sunset.

There are 4 boats tied to the wall already – one catamaran, one trawler and one sailboat with another sailboat rafted to it. They’re all facing the way we came from so their noses are pointing into the current. The trawler offers to let us raft to him, as does the sailboat that’s already rafted and we try to back up in the current. Wayne does a decent job of it until the current starts swinging him and we have to go forward again and try again. After several attempts we end up going through a bridge that opened for us (it connects a visitors center on the other side of the canal to the main part of the canal visitor center and swings open to allow boats to go through). The canal is pretty narrow but I volunteered to try and pivot us around to go back through the bridge so we can raft up to the other boats pointing the other way. I learned how to do this last year and discovered that I can still do it, so we snugged up to the sailboat and said, “we’re your entertainment for the evening”. We rafted up to the two sailboats and thanked them for helping us and allowing us to raft to them. They’re very nice people. Rob (a single handler) and his dog Tiva are on the boat we’re rafted to called “Jade East”. He’s buddy boating with the boat he’s rafted to “Hampshire Rose” owned by Holly and Rob. They told us all about the visitor center and we need to make sure to go and sign into their book in the morning when they open because that’s how they get their funding for operation – by the amount of boaters that stop by. I’d like to go explore but don’t want to traipse across all the boats so will wait until morning to see what’s around. They’re both heading out at 9:30am so I’ll jump ship when I get up to take pictures, etc…