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December 13 - We’ve made the turn at the Looney Tunes sign into the Dismal Swamp and are heading down a narrow channel passing along quietly through the trees flanking us on either side.  We made the plan that we would make it as far as the first lock on the canal and anchor in the small area right before the lock itself for the night to wait for the first locking in the morning at 8:30. We made good progress down the canal, and got to our target location before dark.  The only boat on this side of the lock, we set our anchor and settled in for a quiet evening.  I still hadn’t regained my appetite, so we made a light meal and afterwards made it an early night.  The guys were exhasted from their overnighter, and I was still a little off as well.

December 14, 8AM  Overslept AGAIN!  We scrambled out of bed, hailed the lockmaster, who tartly informed us that if we were hoping for the 8:30 locking he’d suggest that we get ourselves into the lock and set.  We pulled anchor and motored over into the lock, tying up on the Starboard side.  Within a few minutes, the lock gates closed, and we were raised up about 6 feet as the locks worked their magic.  We emerged from the other side to where another boat was waiting (I think that the lock master had already RUN the locks once before he ran them for us (oops!) and we proceeded down the canal to the bridge, which is operated by the same lockmaster.  We passed through, planning to stop at the dock immediately following the bridge, only to find another boat already moored there.  Hmm, we thought, and continued on our way down the canal… We’d really wanted to stop at that dock as it provided walking access to a grocery, an auto parts store, and a hardware store, but we were uncertain of the etiquite about tying up in the very small space ahead of the other boat so we just putted along.  Shortly thereafter though, we looked back to see that the other boat had cast off, and was now underway as well.  A brief discussion and we made the decision to turn around and go back to the dock so that we could pick up the items we needed.  As we passed the other boat, they hailed us teasingly about our heading the wrong way, and we waved and laughed and explained we were headed back for provisions.

While the guys stayed and worked on yet more repairs, I walked over to the grocery store and picked up a handful of items we needed, then went back out to the auto parts store to pick up a couple more alternator belts.  We cast off and continued on down the ICW, hoping to make it to the second set of locks for the 2PM opening… no such luck, we were a little slower than we’d have liked and arrived at the locks along with a trawler, the Marisol, and had to sit and wait for the 4:30 locking. Thankfully, there were no boats coming through to the North, so they put us and Marisol through at 4 (the time for the Northbound locking) and we were on our way.  With darkness closing in, we made our way down the channel, and made the decision to put in in the sheltered anchorage behind Goat Island (where we met up with  Marisol again).  We cooked up some delicious steaks, and tucked in for the night, making the first use of the many movies we had aboard before turning in for the night.