Greetings Boating Community,

We love our boating community  and know this can be an inconvenience in your attempt to travel the waterway, but this event occurs for a few hours once a year.  We’d like to suggest a compromise. Our set up starts early in the morning with traffic crossing the State Park pedestrian bridge for preparations and registration at around 6:30am.  If you are tied up at the Welcome Center dock, we invite you to enjoy the view of paddlers launching colorful kayaks into the water from the park’s pedestrian bridge.  The launch will begin at 8:30am and paddlers will have cleared out of MM 28 location by 10:30am, heading north.  Paddlers have usually made their destination at Ballahack Road by 1 pm.

We want this experience to be enjoyable for all of our waterway travelers.  Pulling out early from our dock (before 7:30 am) will also lead you on your way, without any encounters with paddlers.  If you are staying at our Welcome Center dock the evening before, we will remind you of the upcoming events in the morning, to assist in your choices. 

I hope this message will provide the ability to plan a great day on the Dismal Swamp Canal for all of our guests, paddlers and boaters, alike.  On behalf of the Paddle for the Border Team, thank you for sharing this with your boating partners and please let us know if you have any questions.

Many thanks,
Sarah