Lifting the anchor at 7:45am gave us time to arrive at the first of two locks on the Dismal Swamp. Traveling along at our normal speed we came across a line of other boaters beginning their trip along the swamp. As we started to pass them they were not very happy with us, so we settled down and traveled about two knots for approximately 12 miles to the first lock. The locks had certain times for north bound openings so you had to pace yourself. It did work out and we arrived in time. We entered the lock and there were about nine boats with us. One of the trawlers bumped Pekabu as he was moving to the other side of the lock. That trawler had been one of the boats that would not let us pass. We were raised eight feet to the Dismal Swamp. We had to put a bow and a stern line around a cleat on land and then hold the rope and keep adjusting as the water levels would change. Upon exiting the lock again we were in the slow line of boats. The chatter on the VHF by a trawler and some of the other boats was that we slower sailboats were going to have a hard time making the second lock and the final time slot was for 3:30. So, a few of them opted to stay overnight at the free dock of the Welcome Center which was in the middle of the swamp. In talking among ourselves on our private radios, we chose to keep going and try our luck in making the last opening of the lock. After all, we thought, it was possible because we would be losing some of the boats which were even slower than the sailboats in our group.
As we were travelling down the second half of the swamp which was almost eight feet the entire way, we enjoyed looking at the beautiful surroundings of the swamp. You could see from the pictures the narrowness of the swamp with the trees, the cascading honeysuckle bushes, lily pads, and so many other plants too numerous to mention. We saw many turtles sunning themselves on the dead trees that had fallen. We did bump a few times on the dead heads underneath the water. The dead heads were tree stumps that were not quite cut far enough down but that was just part of the entire ambiance of the Dismal Swamp. The swamp had trees hanging over the waterway and the spreaders of Andiamo hit an overhanging tree branch and our boat was graced with small branches, leaves, and bark. We arrived at the second lock with about 10 minutes to spare and had to wait for one other sailboat which had come along after us. A trawler, which had refused to allow us to pass her, was there waiting. It had probably figured that it had seen the last of us as we were exiting the previous lock. My thought was that they were surprised to see us! We exited the lock which lowered us the eight feet to the level of the Chesapeake Bay and we were looking forward to our marina in Norfolk just 10 miles away.
We arrived at the last bridge and missed the opening by a mere six minutes. It used to open by demand but they had changed their policy in December. Brunelle dropped her anchor and we rafted up to her to wait out the hour. We commented that was our first raft up on the whole trip. Once we went through the bridge and got in the mix of the Norfolk channels, our engine overheated. We got the warning when the alarm went off! Our fan belt had broken. We were able to get out of the busy channel and we dropped our anchor in 40 feet of water. Brunelle came next to us and Dan jumped on our boat. John got out one of our spares and Dan quickly changed it.
On our way once again to Tidewater Marina we saw a missile aircraft carrier. We arrived at the marina around 7:15pm. Once we all got settled in our slips, we had dinner at the marina restaurant since we were all too tired to look elsewhere. We toasted a good day because it could have gone the other way so many times. Brunelle showed us at dinner that we had not won the lottery with the tickets he had purchased a few days prior but I felt we did win by being on that wonderful trip with such good CCYC friends.
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