Thursday, 9/24/15 The Great Dismal Swamp - 2
We left the visitor center a little after 7:00 in the morning in order to make the hour trip to the lock before he closed it at 8:30. Though still quite windy, the canal was well protected due to the tall trees on both sides.
The farther along the canal and the Alligator River we traveled today, the greener and thicker the algae became. In many places, the only thing we could see was thick green scum - - no water at all. Ugghhhh.
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The lovely water in the lock.
Notice the floaties!!! |
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| Are we having fun yet? |
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| Water pouring into the lock looks like . . . |
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| The green Alligator River!! |
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| It closed in behind us as quickly as it parted |
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| The river was rather circuitous |
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The drawbridge into Elizabeth City was a fairly tight passage.
The first bridge is under construction |
We docked along Elizabeth City's wall which was right downtown. The water was deep, the dock was free and the wind was still blowing a hootie!
With our prop problems, we couldn't go above a fast idle - 6 knots. We hoped the water would be a little clearer here for Jim to inspect the props - - NOT!
He donned his SCUBA gear and decided to take a look. The pressure regulator didn't read any pressure so we thought maybe it was stuck since we hadn't used our equipment in a couple of years.
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| Getting ready to check the props |
Jim took an underwater flashlight. However, that didn't help much. He had to get within a few inches of the boat to even see it with a flashlight. The water was so dark & dense that it was totally black under the boat, even with the light.
Jim felt his way along & missed the props entirely the first pass. After going back, he finally stumbled upon the first prop. It didn't feel or look too bad. Then, NO AIR! It was a somewhat uncomfortable feeling to not know where the surface of the water was. Fortunately, he was able to hold his breath long enough to find the surface. Wow!
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| Notice you can't see anything more than 2" below the surface!! |
The second tank also read empty so we figured they must be empty. Imagine that. However, we really needed to see that 2nd prop so Jim switched tanks & decided to give it another try, mindful of the limited air available. (Ever try sucking air out of an empty water bottle??)
He found the prop & discovered that, indeed, it was a bit curled from whatever we hit. Though he didn't have enough air to try to bend it back, he did make it to the surface before running out. Yeahhh!
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| The Elizabeth City park and docks |
We began researching options for hauling the boat to put our spare props in place. The ONLY place was about 80 miles away. Argghh.
We decided to leave at first light and head toward the River Forest yard. Though the forecast on Friday was for wind and rain all day, the Saturday forecast was worse. We figured we would get as far as possible before settling down for the night.
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| Downtown Elizabeth City |
We left the visitor center a little after 7:00 in the morning in order to make the hour trip to the lock before he closed it at 8:30. Though still quite windy, the canal was well protected due to the tall trees on both sides.
The farther along the canal and the Alligator River we traveled today, the greener and thicker the algae became. In many places, the only thing we could see was thick green scum - - no water at all. Ugghhhh.
