It is my 54th birthday and I am spending it in a swamp - The Great Dismal Swamp to be specific.

It will be a long day so we shoved off from the dock in Norfolk just before dawn. I always find leaving in the dark disorienting despite my Captain's encouragement to sleep-in. Yeah, right. Sleeping is elusive enough for me even when conditions are perfect with my surround of pillows, eye shades plus room darkening shades and "Sleep Pretty in Pink" earplugs. So, call me crazy, but I kind of notice when the starboard engine, inches from my head, roars. Anyway, this morning's disorientation was further compounded by the headache I was sporting from my pre-birthday dinner festivities last night. While a mid-50's birthday is pretty mundane we were happy nevertheless to have our sailing friend, Mike (who keeps his boat here in Norfolk) to help us celebrate. As a birthday bonus, my sailor-baker-woodworker-gardener...and vintner husband popped open a hidden, special bottle of his home-made Cabernet. This wine- David's Cellars "Primus" 2008 - crafted in our home guest shower from grapes flown in from California has been oaked, aged over three years and is ready for sampling. Upon this tasting we deem this the Captain/Vintners finest wine making attempt yet and a very worthy start to my birthday weekend. This morning however my aching head chides that we should have stopped with only the Primus.

As if the very early hour were not jolting enough it is also quite crisp, as a deep cold front has gone through. I am wearing thermals, wool socks, ear warmers, gloves and a fleece vest under my warm-up suit. We leave Norfolk and fight the cold choppy waters for the first hour, but as we approach the ICW life settles down, the air warms a bit and my head clears. I snuggle into a corner in the sun ready to read the last pages of my novel but David excitedly interrupts me to point out the school of dolphins off our bow. Familiar with dolphins from our many hours in warm waters, we are awed and silenced by the sheer size of this pod. As pair after pair playfully arches out of the waters, we estimate that there must be nearly one hundred of these graceful creatures ten feet away from us. Take it for what it is worth, but a psychic once told me that the dolphin is a special spiritual symbol for me. Today, on this my birthday, I feel blessed by this magical coincidental encounter.

I return to my reading but I am again drawn from my final chapters by the story unfolding around me. A mere seven miles after passing under the busy I-64 bridge, we take the Deep Creek cut into the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AIWW) where we will enter the primeval forest of The Great Dismal Swamp. The canal between Virginia and North Carolina, fully dredged by 1805, is the nation's oldest operating artificial waterway and contains the only locks on the AIWW. Choosing this slow, surreal route we find ourselves the lone boat puttering along this narrow swath of coffee-colored water through a forest rich in cypress and cedar just hinting of their upcoming fall splendor. But for the low murmur of our engines at no wake speed, the stillness is palpable. On this crisp fall day, even the wildlife in this National Wildlife Refuge seems hidden and quiet in the dense undergrowth. Good thing because I am sure on a hot wet summer day this canal would live up to its "dismal" bug-infested name.

We soak in the warming sun, stripping off a few layers, as we inch our way up to our first lock just in time for one of its four daily openings. The elderly white-haired, suspendered lock operator steps from the tiny clapboard station to take our lines and helpfully provides instruction as I admit this is our first lock passage. With me on the bow line and David on the stern, the operator locks us in and beings the flood. We handily manage our slow 8' rise followed by our rapid push off and swiftly make our way to the minuscule draw-bridge up ahead. We chuckle as we see our suspendered lock operator hustle to his pick-up truck speeding off to the bridge to serve double-duty as the bridge tender. I guess these tough times call for multi-tasking job efficiencies.

With some time before our next lock, bundled up on the foredeck but warmed enough by the brilliant sun I finally savor each page as I finish my satisfying novel. Our timing a tad off, we arrive at our second lock 30 minutes prior to the next opening and will need to tie off short of the bridge to wait, but we see that the "easy" approach side is already taken by another boat. No problem. As my virtuoso Captain spins our 20' wide boat around in this very narrow canal, he earns actual outright applause from not only the other boat but also a pair of passing cyclists looking on from the trail along the embankment. Try rotating your living room! We handle our second lock like seasoned pros easily negotiating the 6' drop at this end.

After a leisurely but long day, now without ample daylight to reach Elizabeth City (The Harbor of Hospitality), we tuck instead behind Goat Island - a mere craggy hunk in the southernmost part of The Great Dismal Swamp -for the night. In this isolated sanctuary, my honey prepares me a candlelit birthday dinner and we mellow out to the Moody Blues "Nights in White Satin". The music selection undoubtedly reveals my mundane mid-fifties age, but there was nothing boring or mundane about today's unique birthday experience in The Swamp. No, there was nothing Dismal at all about spending my day engulfed in the calm peaceful soulful stillness of nature; rather it was quite Great.

"We are so unused to emotion that we mistake any depth of feeling for sadness, any sense of the unknown for fear, and any sense of peace for boredom." - Mark Nepo