Sailing Away from Winter A Cruise from Nova Scotia to Florida And Beyond

We left early in the chilly morning with Marjorie at the wheel, motoring down the arrow-straight aisle of water through the vivid autumn forest, leaving a soiled brown and beige wake behind us. The water was the colour of Cape Breton tea. The first attraction of The Great Dismal Swamp Canal is its name. You think, That can't be real but it is. The swamp was named in 1728 by Colonel William Byrd II, a founder of a distinguished family. A ribald, acquisitive, and opinionated character, the early Byrd wrote lively diaries. He "rogered" his wife regularly, he reports, and once gave her "a flourish" upon his billiard table. He also left a lively account of his experience leading the survey commission that established the first VirginiaNorth Carolina boundary line. It ran right through the swamp, which Byrd described as "a vast body of dirt and nastiness." Because the swamp almost prevented travel between Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Albemarle Sound in North Carolina, Byrd suggested a canal. In 1764, six investors formed a company to buy forty thousand acres of the swamp, log its hulking cypress and juniper trees, build a canal, drain the swamp, and sell the land for farming. One of the six was a surveyor, who laid down the canal's route. His name was George Washington. Washington sold his shares in 1796 to "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, the father of General Robert E. Lee, who never paid him. The canal slowly advanced, dug initially by slaves. It opened in 1805. Though it has been enlarged several times since, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers still only guarantees six feet of water. The greatest attraction of the canal is the Great Dismal Swamp itself. Such marshes once occupied 30 million acres of the southeastern United States, and even in its modern, shrunken state, this vast ecological nursery still covers 300,000 acres, including a 110,000-acre National Wildlife Refuge. It is home to black bears, white-tailed deer, bobcat, otter, and more than two hundred species of birds. It is one of the few places on this continent where peat is being formed. Interestingly enough, the swamp is about twenty feet above sea level. Hence the lock at Deep Creek, which liftedMagnusnine feet when she entered the canal. And although the amber water looks dirty, it is actually super-pure. It's freshwater, coloured and chemically purified by tannic acids from the juniper, gum, and cypress trees. Bacteria can't grow in it, so it stays palatable long after most freshwater has gone skunky a quality that made "juniper water" from the Dismal Swamp invaluable to the skippers of early sailing vessels. U.S. Highway 17 runs exactly parallel to the canal, though the dense ferns, trees, and underbrush usually hide the motorists from the cruisers. Halfway along the route is the North Carolina border. A couple of hotels at this shadowy, ambiguous border crossing deep in the swamp, far from towns and officials once did a thriving business by catering to duellists, fugitives, and couples in need of quick, unscrutinized marriages. Their location at the state line made for an easy getaway from irate parents, bailiffs, or creditors. One hotelier even advertised the speed of his marriages. "In half an hour after their arrival," he wrote, "'the blushing bride salutes her wedded lord.'" A local newspaper, reporting on one swamp wedding, blandly noted that, "The fortunate groom was just nineteen, and the fair bride was just forty-five." Today, the North Carolina Welcome Center serves both motorists and boaters as they cross the border, providing parking space off the highway andCameron, Silver Donald is the author of 'Sailing Away from Winter A Cruise from Nova Scotia to Florida And Beyond', published 2006 under ISBN 9780771018411 and ISBN 077101841X.