This morning, when we planned to leave our anchorage, it was very foggy. We also were hearing on the VHF radio about an exclusion zone around a Coast Guard cutter and a Navy ship that if we didn’t honor it could be met with “deadly force”. We thought we would wait a bit before leaving… About a half hour later it wasn’t as foggy and we were willing to face the Navy if need be. Actually our route out of Willoughby Bay was through a restricted channel that other cruisers said no one stopped them from using. As we got into the restricted channel a Navy patrol boat came speeding at us, but then he sped on by. We figure we must have passed the “they don’t look very threatening” test. Bill noticed that our AIS was reporting that the Navy ship they were broadcasting about was a surfaced submarine. We stayed the required distance away for sure.

We got down the Elizabeth River and past the Norfolk waterfront. By the time we got to the first opening bridge we were one of four sailboats. Once you get through that bridge and under the next high bridge you can either go straight through the Virginia Cut or turn right into the Dismal Swamp Canal. We were the only boat that turned right. Maybe they knew something we didn’t. Either way you need to go through a lock system. Last year when we went through the lock we were sorry to find out that the legendary lockkeeper, Robert, was off that day. Not only were we lucky enough to have him this time, we were the only boat in the lock so we got all his attention. Robert is a man who loves his job. He knows tons of history of the Dismal Swamp and he is not afraid to tell it to you. He wasn’t in a hurry, and we weren’t in a hurry, so we got lots of history and stories. He even played a couple of conch shells for us. A lot of people bring him conch shells from the Bahamas when they come north in the Spring.

One of the things Robert told us was that when you go through the Dismal Swamp in October, and there has been a strong North wind for the past few days, like this week was, there is a coating of duckweed over the water. You can see in the picture above that the water looks all green. Here is the definition of duckweed, as per Wikipedia: “Duckweeds, or water lens, are flowering aquatic plants which float on or just beneath the surface of still or slow-moving bodies of fresh water and wetlands”. Well that duckweed, that we first thought was so beautiful, soon put quite a damper in our kind of going OK so far day. Robert had told us that it might get caught in our engine cooling system strainer and we might have to clean it out. In the first three minutes after we left the lock we no longer had any cooling water running through our engine. Just like Robert suggested, we checked the strainer and it was completely clogged with a solid mass of Duckweed. We cleaned it out but still no water would flow. Bill finally figured out that the elbow just before the strainer was also clogged. It took us about an hour, countless times of starting and stopping the engine, and a hacksaw to a hose in the engine compartment to put us back in business. It was not enjoyable at all. We were the only ones on the canal too. We even considered pulling the boat with our dinghy but luckily it didn’t get to that. We finally got to the Visitors Center wall, where you can tie up for free, at 6:00pm. We were very happy to be stopped for the day.

Tomorrow we finish the Dismal Swamp Canal and will tie up in Elizabeth City where we hope to do laundry and check out the supermarket. Last year we didn’t need to do either of those things but we sure do now!