Woowee!! We just went under the Bay Bridge...on the home stretch

Had to show that Dan is alive and well and even doing the anchor chores.

We did pull out of River Dunes on Tuesday, June 7th, and made it to the bottom of the Alligator Pungo Canal.  We dropped anchor around 6:30 and cranked up the grill(it was pretty dusty!) and had burgers for dinner. Inspite of grassy islets all around the bugs were not bad at all, but the promised beach (from reports on Active Captain) didn't look very promising so Dory had to bite the bullet, but finally did use her "grassy spot" on the bow in the AM.

The sun was up before 6 so we headed up the canal, down the Alligator River and across Albemarle Sound (the promised 13 knots of wind turned out to be 22 knots at times), but we were on a reach, so it wasn't as bad as the Sound can be, we did have to dodge hundreds of traps tho.  We continued on up to Elizabeth City and took one of their free slips.  We arrived at 5:30 and were the second boat there. Another arrived about half an hour later, but no sign of the "rose people" who often greet cruisers. We definitely are behind the crowd.

Thursday morning we left at 6:30 and headed up the Pasquotank River towards the South Mills Lock. We didn't time it quite right and arrived at 9 am and had to wait for the 11:30 opening.  As we approached the lock I was on the bow and spied a mostly submerged log right in the middle of the river, so I got Dan to maneuver me around so I could push it with the boat hook to the side so others who  might not see it wouldn't hit it.  We then tied to the dolphins to wait for the lock to open.  As we started up and backed down away from the dolphins I saw "my" log had already found a pair of sun bathers.

My log is upper left, these are the other sights we saw as we made our way through the Dismal Swamp.  Roses
are in bloom everywhere along the banks of the river and the Swamp. The dragonfly helped me hold the bow line
as we were locking up to the Swamp. We hoped the fawn didn't scamper up the bank as Rt. 17 is visible right above
it's head.

Our trip through the Dismal Swamp we much bumpier than any of out previous trips. We arrived in plenty of time for the 3:30 opening at the north end of the swamp. When we mentioned it to the lock tender, Robert, at the Deep Creek Lock he told us the level never varies more than 5 inches and wasn't that low.  He suggested writing to the Army Corps of Engineers to get them to drag the bottom and clean up some of the sunken deadheads.  He also suggested that we could put our wait time for the Gilmerton Bridge(closed for commuter traffic until 5;30) to good use and get the cheapest fuel around at Top Rack Marina, so we called them and asked about fuel.  We then called to check of the Norfolk & Western RR bridge which was reportedly being worked on and wouldn't be open until 5 pm.  Dan was told the bridge was "broke" and probably wouldn't even open at 5! There's no other way out to the Chesapeake, so we called Top Rack back and asked if we could have a slip for the night.  They said yes, and the slip would be free if we at dinner in their restaurant.  DUH!  I think we can handle that!  Fuel was $1.83/gallon, and dinner was very good.  We ended up tying next to another C-400, Beauty.  Bryce and Jane Johnson brought her down the Mississippi from Michigan and had spent the winter in the Bahamas and are headed back up the Hudson/Erie route.

Brunelle and Beauty  at Top Rack Marina

The other thing Robert, the lock tender, told us was to watch out because this was the 400th anniversary of Norfolk and there were loads of events scheduled.  We called the RR bridge again and was told it was stuck in the up position, so when the commuter traffic on the Gilmerton was done we we good to go.  We left the dock at 9 am and worked our way through the maze of military and cargo vessels out toward the Newport News tunnel and as we turned the corner, there was a parade of vessels headed toward us.  We had a grandstand view and I kept snapping the camera.  Here is just a smattering of what we saw.

The smallest we saw was this hard had floating down the parade route.  The schooner "Virginia"

seemed to be the welcoming vessel.

Several ships representing several centuries of sail.  Some familiar some less so.

The Ara Liberdade  from Argentina carried up the rear, along with a LARGE container ship and a US submarine, escorted by Betty's favorite naval gun boats (inside joke from  our trip 5 years ago.)

We skirted around behind the sub, making sure to stay 500 yards away and headed up the bay.  As we do when we are going to be on an overnight passage, we send out our SPOT message to family and friends every 4 hours so they can track our progress.  Right after sending our 8 pm SPOT as we were approaching the southern edge of the mouth of the Potomac, we received an e-mail from Gerry Helldorfer alerting us to the fact that the Annapolis/Bermuda race started today and close to 30 boats would be passing us sometime during the night!!  Sorry no pictures, they were hard enough to see let alone try to get a picture.  From 11:30 until almost 2:30 we were on high alert watching for faint running lights!!  They were having to tack as the wind was basically from the south.  They also had to dodge several cargo vessel to boot.  We motorsailed on through the night and went under the Bay Bridge Saturday morning at 8 am.  We are approaching Swan Creek and our slip so I have to go help sort out dock lines as we didn't leave any when we left in October.  Good to be home!! ~~~_/)~~~M&D