Rain, Damn It, Rain

     Here's the situation - you live on a boat.  You're anchored 1/4 mile from shore.  You're asleep in your stateroom.  Hey, it doesn't get any better than that, but wait, you're awakened by the smell of smoke.  It's not the typical smell of  smoke you would expect on a boat.  You might expect to smell smoke from an electrical fire, or,  in the case of Big Run, the raunchy smell of burning fiberglass, but that's not the case.  This smoke has the smell of a campfire or a fire burning in the fireplace.  Well, you live on boat.  You don't take a chance.  Everything has to be investigated, even if it's 3 a.m.  You make a general inspection and nothing, but you still smell smoke so you stick your head out the pilothouse door.  Low and behold, the boat is surrounded by a heavy haze that you can see because of the full moon that has the night lit up like day.  That heavy haze is smoke, and it has penetrated every nook and cranny of the boat. You retire back to bed but are awakened repeatedly through the night as the stench grows stronger.

      The next morning you learn the Dismal Swamp in North Carolina is burning after a lighting strike starts a bush fire, but Big Run is on the Potomac River, between Maryland and Virginia. The Dismal Swamp is 100 miles to the south.  Thanks to some strong southerly winds, the smoke has migrated north blanketing the entire region. Later that morning, the Coast Guard station at Norfolk makes an announcement that they have closed the Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW) to boating traffic due to the fire.  Additional reports on the internet quote the authorities saying the fire is 10% contained and, without help from mother nature, the fires could burn for weeks, or because of the area being so remote, months!  So a plea goes out to Mother Nature, rain, damn it, rain!