After Paul’s multi-day struggle to obtain the Vetus waterlock, it took him literally 20 minutes to install it, making this the first-ever boat project to be completed within its estimated time frame.
Our days at the marina went by quickly. Marina staff took pity on our “distress” situation and gave us some discounts. We enjoyed some beers overlooking the docks of Deale, but sadly we arrived too late in the evening to get the 25 cent oysters. We read the pilot notes for the Bay’s military zones and had a good laugh at all the ways the military will notify you to get out during training exercises, including but not limited to buzzing and dive bombing your vessel.
These couple days also gave Stanley and Jace time to scheme about how they were going to get back on the boat, and soon enough, Paul was driving back to Baltimore to pick up Stanley, who would stay through Norfolk. Jace was working in Norfolk over Thanksgiving and would join us there.
We departed Wednesday, with a gorgeous 10-15 knot wind from the north. We had just the jib out and sailed like that all day, hitting over 7 knots at times. Paul took a very long nap down below, letting the smooth motion of the boat rock him to sleep. Thirty-five nautical miles later, we anchored in the Patuxent River before sundown.
The next day – Happy Thanksgiving – we motorsailed, then motored, our way to Fishing Bay (about 50 NM). It was dark when we arrived, and we noticed the bioluminescence in the water behind us. After 12 hours on the move, we opted to save our Thanksgiving meal for the next day and celebrated with hot dogs.
Friday we motored into Norfolk at sunset. I started to bake a pecan pie and prepped the turkey. The numbers on the military vessels lit up and Stanley listened to taps over the Naval base’s speakers. We kept a sharp lookout for tugs and barges against the city lights as we headed for our Portsmouth marina. After showers (yay, showers!), I continued to cook an entire Thanksgiving feast – bone-in turkey breast, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy and dessert – my first time ever cooking Thanksgiving by myself (with gravy-master Paul’s brief assistance)!
Jace arrived with a growler-size bottle of rum, and we made the mistake of having pre-dinner dark’n’stormies. We had to celebrate the gang being back together! We then stuffed ourselves, since I had made enough food for twice as many people, and Paul immediately headed for bed. Jace and Stanley poured more rum, resulting in hours of karaoke, dancing, and waking up Paul to handfeed him pie.
The next morning we were slow to rise (gee, wonder why) and I convinced Stanley he could surely stay one more day. After fuel and pumpout at a neighboring marina, we were barely on our way at 1 pm. Though only a short day of travel, it promised to be an exciting one (for the nerds we are) – with a closeup look at industrial/military Norfolk, our first “drawbridge”, and our first lock! I was actually pretty nervous about the bridge, which seems silly now – up to this point I hadn’t talked much on the VHF and none of us were sure how the whole thing really worked (even though we knew it should be basic: call bridge, ask to pass, pass when bridge opens, say thank you). I entered Hazard markers into our chartplotter for the drawbridges so they would be easy to spot and we could calculate our timing. Luckily, this first bridgetender communicated very well – I chimed into the conversation when another boat told the bridge we were coming around the bend, and the bridgetender told us to maintain pace and he timed the bridge opening perfectly for our arrival. Success!
I’d seen pictures of the Dismal Swamp sign online and thought for sure we couldn’t miss it, so I didn’t mark the turn in the GPS – so I laughed after Paul suddenly did a sudden 360 and yelled “Whoops!” fifty yards past the sign that none of us saw. We cruised up to the dismal swamp lock about 45 minutes prior to the next scheduled opening, so we dropped anchor to wait. The lock opened and we proceeded forward.
The lockmaster Robert seems to have some internet fame, so I knew we were in for an experience. We secured our lines and Robert gave us a history lesson as the lock filled – George Washington owned much of the swamp but sold it and died before the completion of the canal. Supposedly Edgar Allen Poe wrote “The Raven” while in the swamp. Although tea-colored, the water of the swamp is extremely clean – NASA had planned to use it for the Apollo missions until they moved to reverse osmosis filtering instead. The lockmaster house is lined with conch shells that sailors have brought back to Robert, and he gave us a demo on how to play the shells as horns. He also asked us how, at our age, could we be doing this trip, since we’re not Canadian (apparently Canadian federal employees have a program where they can save part of their salary in order to take a paid year off) – a combo of hard work, budgeting, and a little insanity, I suppose.
Since this was the last lock time of the day and stopping points in the canal are limited, Robert gave us an option we didn’t know we had – we could stay on the dock between the lock and the bridge and join him for coffee in the morning. How could we say no to that!
A friend of mine from college took us to dinner in Virginia Beach (Repeal Burgers = awesome) that night, but we couldn’t keep up the energy to hang out late – and we needed our energy because we didn’t know the adventure that awaited us the next day!
