Dismal Swamp Welcome Center

 Today didn’t start out very well, but things turned out alright and here we are. Tom noticed that our steering was a little sluggish yesterday when we arrived in Elizabeth Cith and had to make a 180 degree turn in the river, so he investigated when he got up this morning. There was definitely a problem and a loud clunk when the steering wheel reached a certain point in either direction. Two hours of phone calls, consults from Steve, conversations with divers, etc. our son Dan happened to call.  He suggested that it sounded like a problem with the top steering column bolt and that prompted the guys to take a closer look.  It looked dried out and they noticed it had a place to lubricate the connection, so Tom hopped on his electric bike, went to the auto parts store and returned with a lube gun and lubricant. Once applied it fixed the problem immediately! Probably something we should have been performing regular maintenance on, but who knew??  Thank you for sons with mechanical knowledge!

We got underway, although 2 hours later than we planned.  After a winding river cruise we entered the canal and 5 miles in went through a lock and through a lift bridge.  We arrived at the free dock at the visitor center and there were already 3 boats tied up, so we hung out in the canal FOREVER till they decided to move there boats closer together to make room.  We are tied to the very end of the dock and Steve and Kathy are rafted up to us. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but there are hundreds of biting red flies swarming the boats. No lie, I killed about 25 of them in the boat, Dewey ate some and I broke a fly swatter! LOL! Good thing I have spares! 

Steve and Kathy ate dinner on our boat and we did manage to lift Madison off he boat so she could potty afterwards. I had to crawl up out of the rear cockpit onto a boat cushion - not a pretty site…. The Welcome Center closed at 4 pm, so we didn’t get to visit, but we’ll be back by car someday.

Tomorrow is the big day where we cross our wake!










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