Slow Boat

What you see on screen: Little colored marks along the edge of the white channel.

The "Brotherhood of the Boaters" is a wonderful thing. We needed advice on navigating the Chesapeake. So we turned to the AGLCA list of "Harbor Hosts."

On Sunday, Al Miles, Portsmouth-area businessman and boater, drove us to a grocery store so we could re-supply, then took us to a marina restaurant so we could spread out charts and pore over them together. Thanks, Al!

What you see in the real world: "aids to navigation."

Yesterday the Brotherhood of the Boaters was at work again.  A local guy, Bill Mathus, spotted the story about us in the boating magazine Latitudes and Attitudes and shot us an email.  Could he help in any way, while we were in town?

We were set for groceries but turns out Bill works for the Coast Guard. He generously organized an insider's tour of the Portsmouth Station.

We were excited.  Only Monday we'd been boarded by the Coast Guard.  Now, we would get to inspect them!

Evidence of careful urban planning: A personal-szied backyard canal, property of the Colonial Governor of Virginia.  (Cap sez: "I want one!")

We're in Hampton City, VA, waiting on the weather to run up Chesapeake Bay. (Forecast today: "Waves 4 -5 feet.")

Yesterday we grabbed a rental car and burned some fossil fuel running up to Colonial Williamsburg, which the crew has long yearned to visit.

If you're not familiar with the place, it's a living history museum that lets you step back into the 1700s.  The houses, the shops, and the public buildings--armory, courthouse, jail, several churches--have been restored or reconstructed using "historically correct materials." (I DID notice, however, that the antique iron street lamps use compact fluorescent bulbs).

Did you doubt the power of the internet to bring people together?  SlowBoat posted about the Belhaven Memorial Bathroom . . .  and now BestRestroomAward is following me on Twitter. (What's YOUR favorite restroom? Vote early. Vote often.)

Earlier this week Dismal Swamp Locktender Robert Peet, on hearing we'd set aside a year for this trip, said (without a trace of irony): "You're going too fast." But SlowBoat keeps a' movin. We left Portsmouth, VA, Monday under swirling little flakes of snow.

We cruised down the Elizabeth River, past container ships large as luxury hotels and Navy ships defended by floating police, and then--all of a sudden--we were starring in a Hollywood action movie! (Does the Cap remind you more of Matt Damon as Jason Bourne or Daniel Craig as James Bond?)  A fleet of SEVEN--count' em--seven super-Zodiacs, spread out in a line, were bearing down on us.  Each one powered by snarlin' twin Mercs. Each one loaded with a full crew of armed men. Each with a machine gun on the bow.

One of them broke the line and pulled close.  The radio crackled to life. "DRAGONFLY! Permission to board on your port quarter!"

U-Turn the lockdawg sez: "That ain't nuthin. Let me tune up my howl."

We're safely docked in Portsmouth, VA, and we feel right at home--this city has electric buses!

Over the next two weeks, we'll be working our way north up the Chesapeake, with stops in Hampton, Annapolis, St. Michael's and other ports.  Looking forward to greeting visitors.

Our final miles on the Great Dismal Swamp Canal were also our final miles on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.  The trip wrapped up with a literal blast: At the canal's Deep Creek Lock, we met the self-described "world's best conch player," Robert Peek (see photo at left).

Some background here:  Back in the 1800s, before airhorns or VHF radios were invented, canal boaters and locktenders used conch shells to communicate with one another.  By blowing into a hole at the tip of the shell, you can make a sound as loud--and as musical--as any trumpet.

Is that the smoke from burning sox? (No, redbud in bloom along the canal)

Today we learned that sailors on Chesapeake Bay celebrate March 21--the spring equinox--by burning their socks.

Truth!  In the words of the immortal Dave Barry, I am not making this up.  (Click the link to confirm.)

Somehow the vernal equinox blew by us this week.  But yesterday was also momentous, because we arrived safely in Norfolk, VA--"Mile Zero" on the Intracoastal Waterway. (Next stop: Chesapeake Bay)

"Should we burn our socks to celebrate our safe arrival?" asked the crew. "No!" said Cap. "I need all the sox I've got to keep my feet warm!"

With a forecast of "High 40, feels like 35," and feeling colder, we pulled away from the Not Very Dismal Swamp Visitors Center dock. A nice little stinging wet mist was blowing, for added traveling pleasure.

But we were well fortified for the day's travails.  Yesterday, after a sunny cruise on canal (photos HERE), we docked to enjoy a fried-chicken-dinner at the Great Dismal Swamp Welcome Center.