We cruised through Norfolk this morning, stopping for diesel (no water, sigh, too cold so they turned off the water..). Got waylaid by a closed railway bridge, but we made it to the first lock in the Dismal Swamp just in time for the 11:00 opening.
Just as we left the lock, we were treated to a beautiful blue heron. What a gorgeous bird!
After the lock, there is a short run to the opening bridge at Deep Creek. Immediately after the bridge, El Familia Mexican Restaurant! A cruiser's favorite, you can dock just behind the building and have dollar tacos and dollar beers. We stopped for lunch!
Once we really started down the ICW, the "tea" water of the Dismal Swamp became evident. Brown water, turns everything brown, including the waterline of the boat. Scrub, scrub next spring!
About half way through our 18 mile trip today, we came across a dredging operation in the swamp. Now, we love to have it dredged, keeps the boat from hitting bottom too often. But we've never seen it. Apparently, as no other boaters have come through here in 3 days, they decided that it was an ok time to dredge. Dredging involves big floating pipes in the water, snaking back and forth across the narrow channel. Fortuntaely, a guy in a little skif was there to move the pipeline to one side of the canal, and make a path for us to use. It took a while; the dredging work was probably a mile long. But we did make it through. Here is what the dredging pipe looks like, suspended by floats (aka blue plastic trash bins).
We made it to the NC Welcome Center, home of a free dock for the night. They have a water spigot and we were able to fill up 6 x 5 gallon jugs to put into our tanks.
Very peaceful here now, but still cold. 23 degrees at 9 pm...glad to have that generator and electric blanket!
1 comment:
Great photo of the egret! I'm enjoying all your photos and blog. Hopefully it will only get warmer as you travel south.
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