Gary and I were up bright and early as
usual. The park was not open yet
so I took a picture to show you how the pontoon bridge looks when it is not
stretched out across the waterway.
We were lucky last night.
No other boats came to the dock to raft up beside us.
We started out to complete our
journey through the Dismal Swamp Canal at 7:30 a.m. It was foggy when we began but soon cleared up. We saw plenty of logs on the edge of
the canal. We were glad we didn’t
hit any with the boat. There were pilings on the side of the canal that had little trees and even grass growing out of their tops.
We knew we
had plenty of time to make the 11:00 a.m. opening but wanted to be prepared for
the unknown. Further up the canal
a farmer has permission to “slide” a portable bridge across the canal to move
his livestock and farm equipment from one side to the other. We knew it would be our luck that he
would have the canal closed so we would have to wait. We were lucky he did not.
Since we were able to make good time, we
arrived at the Deep Creek Bridge at least an hour early. LAST DANCE and TRAVELLER tied up to a
concrete seawall just south of the bridge to wait for the opening. Bob and Jane and Gary and I got out and
talked until the bridge operator came to open the bridge. This bridge/lock combination was bridge
then lock so the lock operator drove ahead of us to open the lock after he
opened the bridge. We entered the
lock where the water level was the same as the canal.
Then the lock operator looped our lines around the yellow bollards directly in front of us. This time we would have to let our lines out as the water drains from inside the full lock. We would gradually go down until we were at the lower level of the Joyce River. It took us 30 minutes to go through this lock at the northern end of the canal. The turbulence of the water filling the lock is greater than the water draining out. This made it much easier going down than going up.
For the next 5 miles we passed more and
more boat traffic and signs of civilization. When the Gilmerton Bridge opened, it looked like rush hour
on the waterway.
Getting into the
Norfolk area was culture shock. It
was the difference between nothing in the canal and everything in Norfolk. Bridges, buildings, fenders the size of our boat, the battleship
WISCONSIN, marinas, two aircraft carriers, freighters, tugs and cranes, cranes
and more cranes. Ship Row was ship
after ship. No pictures. We were afraid of the machine guns.
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| Was this tug named after you Aunt Kay? |
We continued through the area until we
began to enter the Chesapeake Bay itself.
The current began to pull us out.
We were only running 1800 rpms and were traveling at 10.0 to 10.2
mph. We’ve never moved so
fast.
The Chesapeake was good to
us. It was reasonably calm as we
moved through it to Little Creek and Bay Point Marina.
We will be visiting Sara’s family for over
a week. They were waiting at the
dock with hugs and kisses. I
couldn’t take pictures while I was busy helping dock the boat. I even forgot to take them as we
visited before going home with them after we ate at 5 Guys and had frozen
yogurt for dessert.
The photo theme for today is cranes. This time I have tons of pictures to
choose from unlike the last time I tried to use cranes as a photo theme. The pictures do not show how enormous
these cranes are.
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| This is the hook for the enormous crane above. It is the size of a school bus. |
I bet the Dismal Swamp State Park is beautiful. I hope we can go there when we come up to visit.
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