April 14, 2007

April 14, 2007 – Today we started out in Elizabeth City and then went through the lock and into the Dismal Swamp which is in northern North Carolina and southern Virginia. The area is one of cypress and tamarack trees which give the water an iced tea look as the boat goes through it. It leaves some foam on the top which kind of hangs around for a while. Right after we started it began to rain lightly and the Pasquotank creek looked foggy and just fit the name. Then we came to the first of two locks one at the beginning and another at the end of the 22 mile canal which was mostly hand constructed during the Washington years. It has had many things done to it over the years and is primarily a canal which boaters use when going north and south along the intracoastal waterway because it saves them from going across the Albemarle Sound which can get pretty nasty during windy weather. Once in the canal you see the beauty of the trees which have almost grown across the canal and shade it from the sun. The sailboats ahead of us had to be very careful not to snag the tops of the trees in there rigging. About half way through you come to the Carolina border and you can tie up at the Visitor Center and go in and look at all of the stuff. Today there is a severe weather advisory for up ahead in the Norfolk and
Chesapeake area so they are allowing us to tie up and stay until the weather ahead clears out. You can ordinarily stay here overnight if you want to. They took some of the ladies from the boats to town to shop for groceries because we anticipate that it will be maybe two to three days before we can leave here which was nice because the people who operate the dock are state employees. There are currently five of us tied up here and we have had lots of fun visiting with the various people on boats ranging from Shorty's size to a beautiful Fleming boat that is probably 45 feet long but all are really nice people. Since it was a very short day there is not too much to write about but it sure is beautiful here.