Please bear with me while I learn windows 7 and a new lap top key board on a bouncing boat.  Lost three days of blog yesterday and had to start over today on Thursday’s Blog. Does anyone know why I have dots between the words?  Email me or call cell.

The crew was greeted with a cool but sunshiny day, more dew.  Our first obstacle of the day was our neighbor’s line over ours. His line had his boat hanging from the pole (he did not allow for tide change) the jerk.  (Note to self--check lines at night before shoving off in the morning).  John used the Pirate Defender to pry our line from underneath; took about 3 min and Harmony was under way at 8:15. It was interesting going by all the Navy ships in the yards with some having work done on them and some just  sitting there.  Barges, tugs and work boats going this way and that, with snow birders chugging along. Arrived at the Gilmore Bridge only to find our information was wrong (the bridge opens every hour on the down side of the clock) 45 minutes to tool around.  Thru the bridge with us went a gaggle of snow birders.

The next obstacle was the turn we almost missed, for the Dismal Swamp, then the Deep Creek lock--we arrived early and stewed around (that stewing around can be dangerous) for an hour, good time for lunch.  The day turned out to be nice and a warmer one; we took of a layer off for a while. The lock was a very pleasant experience; the lock keeper and his dog were wonderful (the dog was a lab).  The lock keeper gave us lots of local history also blew his conch horn for us, he is very good at that thing. (The fire only came as close as a mile away)  We headed for the Dismal Swamp visitors center and found it full so rafted to a large catamaran with 6 children aboard.  Never heard a peep out of them all night.  The crew dined on Steak, wild rice,  asparagus, salad, and cookies. The rain started in the middle of the night kept it up all night; subsided a little in the morning.