“The Dismal” I’m referring to is the Great Dismal Swamp (GDS), but let me back up a bit before I get into that. Oh, and you might want to grab a cup of coffee or tea, or a snack. You may be reading for a bit.
I arrived in Chesapeake, VA Monday evening and spent Tuesday opening up Indigo Lady, turning on her systems (they came on, yay!), and then cleaning mold for 5 hours. Sounds fun, right? I picked Dave up at the airport that evening (he flew in from a 4-day STEM guitar build & conference in Colorado), had a late dinner, and collapsed in exhaustion at the hotel. We spent Wednesday preparing the boat for departure. This means Dave did a bunch of fixing/installing/other boat stuff I can’t do, while I provisioned, did laundry, did more cleaning, and unpacked stuff. We had another late dinner and collapsed in exhaustion, again, at the hotel.
That was the tedious, un-fun part, and since I prefer to provide you with the bright and moldy sides of living aboard, that was important for you to read. It gets much more fun, though, so keep reading. I promise I will get to the Dismal Swamp part soon.
Thursday morning we headed back north towards Portsmouth to have Lady hauled for a much-needed bottom cleaning. After clearing the Great Bridge Lock we had to slow down for a deer crossing. Yes, I said deer crossing, and yes, we are actually on a boat. The young buck was swimming across the river and we were on a collision course, so we stopped to let him pass. He finished his crossing, scrambled ashore and scampered off into the woods. We continued on reaching the boat yard a little early. Lady was hauled and her hulls scrubbed. Yay! We met a lovely couple having work done to their boat (hello Greg & Mary if you’re reading this!) and had them aboard for happy hour, which turned into an impromptu spaghetti dinner.
We’d hoped to start our trek south on Friday, but the brutal 25+ knot winds and temps in the low 40s (colder with the wind chill) kept us put. That actually gave us more time to get stuff done on the boat, and it was a beautifully sunny day, so we worked merrily along until dinner and retired somewhat early.
Saturday we started our trek south. It was sunny, warmer, and no wind. We cleared the final bridge out of Portsmouth, VA and turned right toward The Dismal Swamp (see, I told you I’d get to it). Early settlers in this area called swamps ‘dismals.’ Doesn’t that make the name ‘Dismal Swamp’ redundant. It’s like naming it ‘Swamp Swamp.’ But I digress…
We cued up for the Deep Creek Lock (north end of the GDS) with about 5 other boats and headed through on the 11:00am opening. We had been warned about how thick the duckweed can get, especially after a big wind like the day before, but we were encouraged by experienced ICWers in the ICW Cruising Guide by Bob423 Facebook group (thanks to all who weighed in on my post there!). The big issue with the duckweed is that it can clog strainers and intakes for engines, or in our case the generators that we sometimes need to charge our batteries. Fortunately we had a sunny forecast and topped off batteries by the time we got to the GDS and we made it to the Dismal Swamp Visitor Center without needing to run the generators (they ran before we got to the Swamp). We spent the night there tied up to their dock. There were 8 boats tied up for the night in all, the 5 of us from the 11:00am lock opening, and three that came through on the 1:30pm lock opening.
We met some great folks with whom we got to chat a bit before the sun set and it turned frigid, and were able to have slightly longer conversations in the morning before we all got underway for the 11:00am lock opening at South Mills Lock on the south end of the Swamp. We shamelessly handed out our boating cards, so if any of you are reading this- Hello to Cacique, Done Dreamin’, Don’t Wake Me, Wildly Intrepid, Northern Wind, and Idle Queen! May our paths cross again soon 🙂
The Visitor Center had mostly surface duckweed well above the level of our intakes, so we topped off our batteries this morning (Sunday) before setting off. We left early because we didn’t know how thick the duckweed would be in this last 5 miles, nor its potential impact on our speed. We arrived much more quickly than anticipated, which worked to our advantage. We sat for 90 minutes in the sun before the lock opened, and our batteries were almost topped off again by then. We made it through the lock and the copious amount of duckweed on the other side of it that stretched for several miles, reaching clear water before the generators ever kicked in again. Phew!
We are SOOOOOO glad we took the Dismal Swamp route!!! It was amazingly gorgeous (even the duckweed parts). There was still some autumn color on the leaves. It’s a quiet and scenic route. My words can’t do it justice, so I’ll direct you to my Life on Lady Facebook page (click the FB icon on the right), and let the pictures speak for themselves. The river beyond the GDS was also quite scenic, so I’ve thrown in some of those pictures as well. The GDS canal is about 22 miles, followed by another 18 miles of river to Elizabeth City, largely wilderness; we saw very few houses along that entire route. It was delightful!
We are overnighting at Elizabeth City. We unfortunately do not have time to explore this very welcoming town. We did at least get to enjoy some fun conversation at a local brewery, and yummy seafood at a local eatery. Alas, we will be off by 8:00am tomorrow morning to continue our trek along the ICW to Beaufort where we will pick up additional crew and then continue our trek along the coast or offshore, rather than on the ICW.
Start to finish, this leg of our journey to the West Palm Beach area of Florida is about 800 miles, traveling by water at about 5 kts (about 5.75 mph) and only during daylight hours in November. Throw in the potential need to wait out bad weather (which we’ve already done once, Tuesday isn’t looking too good either) and factor in the uncertainty of being able to do some multi-day offshore travel after Beaufort vs. short day hops along the coastline, and we’re looking at anywhere from 12-21+ travel days. If I don’t get to it sooner, I’ll post from Beaufort.
Life on Lady 