Oct 28

I guess we could have started the day by sailing, but it would only be about 5 miles until we entered Hampton Roads and then sailed by the Norfolk Navy docks. I was worried that the traffic might be pretty busy so perhaps it would be better to motor.

As it turned out, we probably could have sailed because, this being a weekend, there was not much traffic. We did cross paths with a container ship and a Coast Guard cutter. I am amazed that they do not loose more containers in rough seas. I guess that is what insurance is for. The Coast Guard cutter was closely followed by inflatables manned by people all dressed in black. I don’t think they were drilling for marine rescue work.

The good thing about going through Norfolk on a weekend, is that the very restrictive bridge opening schedule does not apply – and there are a lot of bridges.

The row of mothballed aircraft carriers and other visible signs of military might are something to be seen.

The Dismal swamp can be absolutely beautiful. Some of the homes are amazing. The locks were scheduled to be closed on Oct 30 due to lack of rain. As it was, there were only 2 openings per day at each of the 2 locks. We were quite surprised that they opened at 2 PM instead of the scheduled 3 PM. It was the next day that we discovered that our clocks were off by 1 hour since they had automatically adjusted for the change in daylight savings time, but they were a week too early since the date has been changed.

The lockmaster at the first lock was quite proud of his banana trees. He had put a plastic bag over the bananas to hasten their ripening.

There are very few places to stop in the Dismal Swamp. When we pulled into the North Carolina Welcome Center, it was dark and there were no more rooms (spaces) at the dock. Fortunately, we were invited to raft up, making new friends in the process.