Sun, Oct 27 - In which we rock the lock

Portsmouth/Norfolk, VA to Elizabeth Dock

Our last day with our handlers. Scott went off to pick up their rental car while Rick and I biked BACK to the Dollar Store (where, again, nothing is a dollar).   But this boat needs some things, I’m not going to lie.  You should see the shopping list Karen made us. (And most of them cost WAY more than a dollar)…

Before we left Rick discovered that the AC wasn’t working, and he and Scott brainstormed and crawled around in the tiny engine area, until they came up with a solution.  While they were down there, they tested the fire suppression system.  When all came up golden, they were happy as pigs in mud.  (huge eye roll, but also appreciation).

We left the Tidewater Marina (Karen left in the car to meet us by the Dismal Swamp Lock) much more gracefully than we entered.  Nary a swim platform was grazed, and no one was watching.  Isn’t that just how it goes….

Just on the outside of the Port we had to wait for a railroad bridge to go up.  They can’t raise a bridge once the train is a certain distance away, so we had to wait quite a while.  We are supposed to eschew a schedule whilst on the boat, but we had hoped to get to the Dismal Swamp Lock before Scott was picked up by Karen.  But that was not to be…  Right after the bridge we took a hard right (starboard) into the beginning of the Dismal Swamp Canal and docked at some random deserted old ship yard dock to drop Scott off.  Karen arrived shortly in the rental car, dispensed Subway sandwiches – and we all said sad/relieved goodbyes.  Rick and I had to kill time so as not to get to the lock too early, so we spent some time breathing in the peace of just the two of us on OUR BOAT! 

We made the 3:30pm opening of the Dismal Swamp (I’m just going to say that as often as possible because…. Dismal…) Lock and were the only boat present, coming or going.  I find that, as a woman, if I completely overplay my newness in a situation, people jump to help – so I told John (the relief lockmaster) that it was our first time and plied him for information as he helped us tie up.  I’m so glad we didn’t have to jostle for a place with lots of boats for in our first lock. 

We rose 8 feet to the DS canal, (WHAT – I can’t even wrap my mind around bodies of water being at different levels and the mechanics required to move a boat between them…) and right after the lock found the free Elizabeth Dock to the starboard.  As seems to be the custom, fellow boaters already tied up ran to help us as we approached – what a lovely community…  I went to toss one fellow my bow line and said to him in my best Karen-trainer-voice ‘hold your arm out to the side so I don’t hit you in the face’ as though I had been boating all my life and knew what I was doing.  Sadly, he was French and unimpressed by all that gibberish and so I hit him in the face and then he tied us up.  The dock was nothing to write home about – small, dank and covered with goose poop.  But we felt so happy to have locked and docked on our own none of that mattered.  Of course, then we remembered we weren’t allowed, for insurance reasons, to be operating a boat without the trainers on board until our insurance had come through – so the fact that we were tied up unscathed called for champagne and we took a walk to find some, and a pizza. By 7pm (which felt like 11pm) we were bushed and ready for bed.Thank goodness for the spiders - we had to 'screen up' or be eaten by bugs at the Goose Poop Dock.