Our Adventures on Sea Dream: Another Day in Portsmouth & Then on to The Dismal Swamp

TUESDAY- Portsmouth is so interesting; George Washington, Chief Black Hawk, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and many other important people were all here. After walking the historic district, we lunched Mexican at a sidewalk table (Louis could sit, too) in town. After browsing the little shops it was back to SeaDream.

Our dock neighbors are Jeff and Karen Siegel, the owners of www.ActiveCaptain.com ! Jeff helped us load Active Captain into our Nobletec TimeZero navigation software. He's an absolute wealth of information about the waterways. Mike has contributed so many reviews to AC that he earned an official Active Captain hat. Might the marinas now treat us with special respect? We'll see!

This afternoon, Bob and Julie docked near us. We all walked the town, stopping for a fun dinner at Lobscourser's. They told us of their adventures on their first solo three day trip down from Baltimore. The first solo is always a bit of a learning curve.

WEDNESDAY- Jeff cast our lines and we left for the Dismal Swamp at 10:30 AM. We motored along, between a huge, tug-steered freighter and a tug/barge combination but both left us at the Virginia cut turn. We ate lunch at a free face dock before entering Deep Creek, headed for the 1:30 PM lock opening, then on to the Dismal Swamp. A bit of confusion leaving the dock caused us to bump our bow on the dock wall, leaving a fiberglass scar. Nuts! At mile marker 20 we tied up for the night at a very small but very sturdy, 20' long dock. Since we're 53' long, it's quite a sight. We hang over 15' at both ends! This narrow swamp canal is peaceful, quiet and beautiful, with trees showing bright Fall colors.