Willoughby Spit?

We arrived in the Norfolk area late in the afternoon and decided to stay at Rebel Marina in Willoughby Spit. It is located just north of the Naval station. The marina had about 50 slips, with about 5 available for transients (overnight). David (owner) took over the marina when his father passed. I know we have said this before, but this marina is great. Courtesy car available, nice capt. lounge with a fully stocked kitchen (galley), cable television and a Hot Tub! What a great idea, hot tub after fighting the waves on the lower Chesapeake Bay.
We left a couple of days later after a visit in downtown Norfolk, and Portsmouth and a stop at Hampton Roads beach to take a look at the ocean. We would have stayed longer, the the wind was off the coast at about 40kts. Our visit to the beach was short. So back to the boat and the hot tub for the second evening. We cruised by the Navy ships that were in port the next morning. I counted less than 20 ships and 2 carriers in port.  I'm assuming that a lot of ships are either deployed or the U.S. is in the progress of culling the fleet. I hope its the former. I realize the Battleship era has passed by the looks of some of the new Guided Missle Cruisers (CG's), but I still believe there is strength in numbers. I guess the 500 commissioned ship navy is a thing of the past.

We cruised through the Dismal Swamp Canal at a slow and pleasing speed of 5 kts. It took two days to travel just over 50 miles, but oh what a trip. The water had a look of a good cup of coffee. Midway through the swamp there is a rest area. On one side of the building, is the entrance from the highway, the other is a dock with room for 3 boats. We were rafted up to two other boats. So there were nine of us tied up to the dock. The sailboats were against the dock, and they wanted to leave at first light in the morning. So come 7 am, we did a little dance and the sailboats were off. We slid back up to the dock and went back to relax for a couple more hours. Next stop was Elizabeth City N.C. Mariners warf offers free slip and a courtesy van picks you up to go the local store. The local people come down and look at all the boats passing through town, the local newspaper stopped by and interviewed us and took pictures for a future edition. We wanted to fill up before traveling any farther, so we had plans of going back up river to a local marina and gassing up. We got to the drawbridge, and the operator told us that the bridge was broke and the repairman was on his way. We pulled back to the docks to wait it out. Later the operator to me he had good news and bad news: Good news is that we get to stay in Elizabeth City another night. Bad news is that the bridge is "broke good". It won't be fixed until the next day, so we decided on taking a slip at Pelican Marina. Good thing we aren't in a hurry.