Due to the lock schedule on the Great Dismal Swamp, we left the dock at about 7:45am. The locks open at 8:30am, 11:00am, 1:30pm and 3:30pm. You have to be there at these times, or you cannot get through. We had about seventeen miles to go from our free dock in Elizabeth City to get to the first lock. I figured if we do about six knots, we would get there in three hours. I wanted to make sure we were there for the 11am opening, so we were the first to leave in the morning, but the others weren’t too far behind us.
About the Great Dismal Swamp: “The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge is the largest intact remnant of a vast habitat that once covered more than one million acres of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Formal protection of this resource began in 1973, when the Union Camp Corporation (a local forest products company) donated 49,097acres to The Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy conveyed the donated land to the federal government, which, combined with additionally purchased land, was used to establish the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in 1974. With a secondary purpose to: “Promote a public use program when not in conflict with the primary objectives of the refuge.”” Now here is information about the canal: “The Dismal Swamp Canal is located along the eastern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina. It is the oldest continually operating man-made canal in the United States, opened in 1805. It is part of the Intracoastal Waterway. In May 1763, George Washington made his first visit to the Great Dismal Swamp and suggested draining it and digging a north–south canal through it to connect the waters of the Chesapeake Bayin Virginia and Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. As the first president, Washington agreed with Virginia Governor Patrick Henry that canals were the easiest answer for an efficient means of internal transportation and urged their creation and improvement. Work was started in 1793. The canal was dug completely by hand; most of the labor was done by slaves hired from nearby landowners. It took approximately 12 years of back-breaking construction under highly unfavorable conditions to complete the 22-mile long waterway, which opened in 1805.” So why is it called Dismal, you ask? Here is what I found: “In the dog days of Virginia’s summer, it would seem to be no surprise that a place as inhospitable to humans as the snake-infested, mosquito-swarming Great Dismal Swamp would have such a downer of a name. But rather than being what might be considered an apt description, its name is a redundancy. Called “great,” possibly because of its size, it was called “dismal” because that was a common term at the time for a swamp or morass.”
Back to our story: we made it to the first lock about thirty minutes early. We floated there while the others caught up and were given directions from the lock master about how to proceed into the lock. We went in first, and due to the COVID restrictions, she couldn’t handle the lines with her hands, so she reached down with a long boat hook, took the line and wrapped it around a pylon, then lowered it back to us. Lauren was on the bow and I took the stern. Once the process started it took about thirty minutes for her to lift us about eleven feet. Once the chambers were full the gates opened and we all proceeded out, with us in the lead. The canal is a ‘no wake’ zone, so you are only supposed to go around five knots in speed. There are a few concerns for taking the Dismal Swamp route: One is the shallowness of the canal, we saw five feet of depth ar some points, and we draw four and a half feet- that doesn’t leave much wiggle room. There is also submerged logs, which you cannot see and can ‘bump’ into, or if you are following someone, their propellers can dislodge them so they start to float and the following boat hits them. There is also an issue with ‘duckweed’ at certain times of the year. These plants grow floating in still or slow-moving fresh water around the globe, except in the coldest regions. The growth of these high-protein plants can be extremely rapid and they can clog a boats cooling system quickly, causing overheating. Since we were the lead boat, we took our time. We didn’t have any issue with the duckweed, but we did bump a couple of logs. Our intention was to stop at the free dock at the halfway point where there is a visitor’s center. As we approached the dock, we could see that it was full. The guide books do say you should raft off if it is full, but we didn’t want to do that with the whole COVID thing, and we didn’t know anyone there. I consulted with Lauren and we decided to continue on to the next dock we saw on the charts. I also saw the boat that kept going when we stopped at Elizabeth City, was still docked there. It is only supposed to be a one day stop, but with the weather we’ve had, nobody seemed to want to be moving. We were getting close to the next dock and I could see there were more boats docked here too. Shit. I again consulted with Lauren and the charts and saw there was still one more free dock at the end of the canal, before going through the lock. That is going to be our last hope. We continued on and actually was catching up to a sailboat in front of us. I heard him call on the radio to the lock master, who also doubles a the bridge tender. I too got on the radio to let them know I was coming right behind. I also asked the lock master about docking at the docks by the lock. He said there was a few boats there, but there was room. The sailboat we were now following also said he was going to stop there. Great. The lock master told us there was room for one boat at the fixed dock, and room for one boat on a floating dock next to it. The sailboat and I communicated and I told him I would stay back and take whichever one he doesn’t. I told him we weren’t planning on coming this far today and he said the same! The skies were getting darker now and rain was imminent. We made our way through the bridge and I fell back a bit to see where he was going. He went for the fixed dock, so we went for the floating one. As we approached, a fellow from one of the boats already docked came over to assist. I noticed there were no cleats to tie off to, so we used the pylons holding the dock. Once we were secure, Lauren took Frank and I went about double checking and setting up our bumpers. The rain started soon after we were settled in. I chatted a bit with the other captains as I was going about my business and most had been here for a couple of days due to weather. It was looking like tomorrow will not be a good travel day, so we will stay at least two nights here.
Day 2- there wasn’t anything really around where we are docked except a park. There is a grocery store a little ways away, but we didn’t feel like getting the bikes off and it was cold and rainy all day. We pretty much stayed in the boat and walked Frank between downpours. We planned our next stop, which we located another free dock across from Norfolk, in the town of Portsmouth. The reviews are mixed- it’s free and it is right downtown, but that brings another element to leaving your boat to explore and safety in a ‘big city’. We will just have to see for ourselves…