Norfolk and the Loopers

Dismal Swamp USS George H.W. Bush in Norfolk

We made it! Our first major objective was to make Norfolk by May 7th. The roughest waters we have had in our northern journey was definitely the Pamlico and Abermarle Sounds. But once through those open waters, we made it into the Dismal Swamp, above left. I have not told you about how Shelley lost our "big ball" in the Dismal Swamp. After we cleared the first lock into the swamp canal, she untied our large 2 ft diameter round fender and left it on the back deck, untied. Sometime in the next hour it rolled off the boat.

We talked to others who came through the swamp after us, and sure enough they saw it along the bank. So we are now one big ball short. You never know when you will need your big balls....and we have but just one.

Jay and Anne Carey joined us in Norfolk and we preceded up the Chesapeake to Deltaville, Virginia. Anne is from Virginia and has cousins up and down the coast. Her cousin Carolyn is the Poet Laureate of Virginia. We also met her cousin Walter who is a well known architect. He has won many international awards for his work, including the design for the Virginia Air and Space Museum in Hampton. It is great to have Jay on board as he is a very capable boater and navigator. It was nice to have someone run the boat which let me do other things as we moved up the Chesapeake. We enjoyed having the Carey's on board, and hope they come back.

The American Great Loop Cruisers Association has its Spring Rendezvous here in Norfolk starting tomorrow. We affectionally call this the Loopers meeting. This will be a great opportunity for Shelley and I to talk to others who have already completed the Loop, and others just starting, like us. Plus there are vendors here anxious to provide or "sell" us all the charts, books, guides, et al, which one needs to do this journey. I am actually looking forward to this, as there is so much we need to explore before we start north into the Chesapeake again, and then to New York. Never thought I'd be a Looper.

We have been contemplating the route to Lake Huron in either one of two ways. You can take a left at Troy, New York and enter the Erie Canal. 37 locks and 250 miles later you drop into Lake Ontario. From there you take the Trent Severn Canal across southern Ontario Canada into Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. Or you can continue north up the Hudson River from Troy, NY and into Lake Champlain. That is a beautiful lake, and deserves much exploration. From there you continue out the north end of the lake through the Richeleiu Canal and into the St. Lawrence Seaway. Turn left and you go up the river to the Ottawa River, and travel 70 miles up that river to the capital of Canada. There you connect into the best canal of all, the Rideau Canal, which takes you southwest down to the Trent Severn Canal.

So that is the two routes and I hope that this meeting will help me understand which one we can do, and have the time to do. The latter may not work. All I know is that either way, there is high adventure ahead of us. No matter what, we have to be out of the Great Lakes and in Chicago by Sept 15th. We have covered 800 miles of our 5000 miles. That is 1500 gallons of fuel, or three tanks on Rock Chalk, to explore the eastern third of the US, and southern Ontario. Can't wait.