You ever watch a video of something bad happen to someone else and think it couldn’t happen to you? I suppose that’s how we felt about the all the sailing blogs we read and YouTube vlogs we watched – they’re just showcasing the crazy! This stuff doesn’t happen to everyone!
After the water pump incident, we should have known, but we needed one more event for reality to set in: Lots of things will go wrong, often, for every sailor.
We were very excited that the Dismal Swamp had recently reopened after a long closure due to Hurricane Matthew damages. With its tea-colored water and overhanging trees, plus miles of remote wildnerness and the bonus of getting to experience two locks, it sounded lovelier than the alternative Virginia Cut. We were warned that the duckweed growing on the water’s surface was clogging engine strainers, but it just added to the charm of the swamp.
After breakfast and history lessons with lockmaster Robert and saying goodbye to Stanley (his client cancelled for Monday – I tried to use this to convince him to stay but he wasn’t falling for it any more), we were off and through the drawbridge.
Despite the excitement of having to worry about hitting logs floating under the boat as well as hitting branches above with the mast, it was a pretty, relatively calm trip. Very little duckweed got sucked into our strainer, which we checked religiously. In a few hours, we cleared the next draw bridge with another sail boat and headed for the final lock.
The boat ahead of us slowed first. The duckweed thickened and their engine was overheating. We started to pass them, thinking we may fair better, but as we passed, we started to overheat and had to shut down as well – we checked the strainer but nothing clogged it. We dipped the boat hook into the weeds – they were inches thick, in some places approaching a foot. They were blocking our intake so the water to cool the engine couldn’t even be sucked into in the boat. The weeds were so think we weren’t sure the boats could move through it!
We were 100 feet from the lock entrance and unsure how to get there. We radioed the lockmaster but anything she could do with the water would only make our situation worse. We tried throwing a line – the guys on our boat and the other boat made several attempts to get the line to shore, but fell short. Paul started to dress in his wetsuit, thinking he’d swim the line to shore, while I begged him not to, just envisioning him totally tangled in the weeds. Finally we attached a plastic chug to the end of the line and someone heaved that to shore. The lockmaster, and one of many neighbors who came out to assist (i.e., watch the show), tied our line to a cleat inside the lock, we tied our stern to the bow of the other boat, and we began to winch/pull ourselves through the weeds and into the lock.
The lockmaster told us we may have set the record for the longest lock ever – 2.5 hours, and we were through!
Unfortunately at this point, we were still far from the next decent stopping point in Elizabeth City. And it was starting to get dark. We passed the other boat after they lost the light at the top of their mast to a tree (Paul: Lindsey, tell them they’re heading for a tree. Me: They got it. The guy on the bow is looking up. Boat: SMASH! Light: SPLASH! Guy on other boat, to guy driving: Sorry, I thought you saw it! Paul: I told you – boating is like TSA – see something, say something!).
The night couldn’t end without our own hiccups of course. We were aware of a railroad swing bridge that should typically be open to boat traffic, but when we got near it, it was dark and the bridge was unlit. As we got closer, our flashlights lit up a reflector – but only one so we couldn’t see which side of the opening it marked or if the bridge was even open. We approached super slowly and were uncomfortably close by the time we could see our way through.
At Elizabeth City, we called the drawbridge over and over with no response. Finally the bridgetender came through: “This is the bridge! Do you need an opening?!” I tried to respond on both radios, but he couldn’t seem to hear me even though we were 100 yards or less from him. Eventually he just opened and we pulled into the Elizabeth City docks. We’d heard how much fun EC is for boaters, but we were obviously way too late in the season. We were the only boat there, a shady character tried to help us tie up the boat, and there was likely a drug deal happening in a car sitting in front of the docks. (Note to other boaters: It’s sounds like the Elizabeth City College docks are the way to go, as we later heard they let you use the showers and cafeteria).
The city saved its reputation (kind of) with surprisingly good Japanese food at the only restaurant open past 8 pm on a Sunday. It was a nice to meet you Elizabeth City, but we’ll be gone in the morning!
