Change of plans

Last time I wrote, I said we were thinking of going up the Potomac River to Washington, DC.  Well, lifes best made plans.... we changed them.  The Potomac isn't that deep outside of the channel and so doesn't have too many places (3 in 96 miles) that we can take a 5 foot draft boat into.  To top that, the tide would be against us nearly all day the whole way... not worth the hassle, so we continued south.

Reedville entrance

After Solomons we found Reedville, (Oct 15th) a harbour that has a long fishing history. Menhaden is a fish that is both a foraging and filter fish and is harvested for its oil and as fertilizer.  There are several large fishing trawlers used in this industry, that we motored by on our way to our moorage for the night. You can sort of see them in this picture.

It now appears that I have two dark spots in my camera that I have no idea how to get rid of...!!!

Decorated for Halloween

The marina here is very sparse, in that the washrooms are to the outside, one hole and a shower behind each door, all cement with the doors left open 24/7 for anyone to use.  The leaves blow in along with anything else, not sure how often they are cleaned.... I passed on the shower.
After a long walk along the main street in town and back (the
town is on a peninsula with one main street) we were ready for dinner.  They have a two restaurants, a museum, post office, fire hall. and homes and not much else, unless you count the ice cream parlour - with home made ice cream- had to partake after supper....

moon set

The marina has a little restaurant attached called the Crazy Crab Restaurant.  The crab is sooooo good, I had a crab cake done just right; Al had the Low Island Boil. We ate as we watched the sun set.  This night is the full moon...

Sunrise

Next morning I watched as the moon set and the sun came up at the same time... something I had never seen before.

We were up early to head to Jackson Creek harbour at Deltaville, Maryland not a long jaunt today as long as the wind and tide are agreeable.  The problem is the entry into this place.  You aim for the harbour, take a sharp right hand turn, almost run into the beach before taking a very sharp left hand turn and then another right just to get through the harbour entrance.  Worth looking at if its on google earth. There is a large sandbar that takes up most of the entry, why its not dredged is a mystery to me.  At the marina we had to do a 4 corner tie in - I hate these because if you don't get in just right there are all kinds of bonks and crashes if the wind or tide are helping in all the wrong ways.  We did indeed inflict another bruise on our poor little boat with this grand entrance.
After we were settled, we borrowed the marina's peddle bikes and rode a couple miles to the grocery store to stock up. We had spied a fish shop going, and stopped in on the way back and of course it was closed... Sunday as it is, no such luck.  Gee darn Al will be cooking lamb chops for supper instead.

Check out the birds getting a ride on the front

Next morning, we are up and getting an early start on a long day to Hampton, Virginia.  Ok, it was good getting into Jackson Creek through that maze... thought we had it right going out... ya, no.  We were at low tide and of course those pesky sand bars seemed to stick out arms to catch us and they did.  We soft grounded in the sand twice before we found the deepest route out.  No harm done thankfully.  Had a bit of wind for awhile to help us along, but it turned onto our nose and hence no good to us at all, back in came the sail.  We passed ships of all sorts, sailboats, big stinkpots and some schooners before we got anywhere near to Hampton, we even saw some dolphins along this part. There were at least 8 container ships anchored on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay from where we were travelling.  This was a 50 nautical mile day and we ended up against the tide for a good chunk of the trip, darn it, but eventually got to whats famously called Hampton Roads.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Roads) .   The tide was really against us going through the narrow channel, in fact we were down to 3 knots with two container ships coming in behind us....  We had to turn into their waves, well we actually had to climb the wake, I couldn't believe the size of the waves that the first of the two ships kicked out.

Massive container ship

We finally got through the channel and turned off onto another channel and away from the ships to where we were staying for the night.
This is a small marina that holds 27 boats and is strictly for transient boaters.  What a great little community we stumbled into.  People appeared out of no where to help us dock, all so friendly and with stories and tips, information.  A couple beside us were from Nova Scotia heading south who have been living on their boat for the last two years, another on the other side of us had a beautiful Island Packet Motor Sailor, (didn't know Island Packet made a motor sailor), another couple with a Grand Banks 42, another couple who had been there for about a month as the husband was recovering from a detached retina.  Interesting people all of them.
after we had supper the Island Packet folks invited us and another couple to their top deck, which could hold a hot tub... to watch the rocket launch that was taking supplies to the space station.  The rocket took off from Wallops Island that is east-ish about 77 miles from where we were.  We watched it ... too cool.  It wasn't real bright, but bright enough to know that was what we were seeing.   I did manage to get it on video with classical music in the background, so appropriate.

Apollo 12

Virginia Air and Space Centre (NASA)

Next morning a few of the boats moved on, we stayed to catch up on laundrey, groceries and to spend some time checking out Hampton.  Nasa has the Virginia Air and Space Centre there that we spent some time wandering through.  The Apollo 12 capsule is there along with a moon rock and even a rock from Mars.  Lots of exhibits, planes hanging from the ceiling, an all round neat place to hang out for a few hours.
Next morning we moved on to Portsmouth which is across Elizabeth River from Norfolk and the huge naval shipyard.  Actually there's a shipyard on both sides of the river.  Along the way there are navy police boats keeping people and their boats 500 feet away from the ship yards and making sure the speed is adhered to.  There is lots of traffic, big ships little ships, ferries, barges being pushed by tugs, big sailboats and our little one. The amount of naval ship power that is in this place is astounding, the dollars that it must take to run these shipyards never mind all the supporting industries as well is unfathomable.
On the Portsmouth side they build the huge super subs that are nuclear powered.

Vessels under construction

USS Wisconsin, destroyer

We stopped in a little free yacht basin for the night at Portsmouth, at high tide and the dock was nearly underwater.  Glad we picked this one and not the other as the other dock was underwater. From here we went across the river on a ferry to Norfolk and the Nauticus museum.  Attached to that is the USS Wisconsin, now decommissioned.  What a huge vessel, apparently the largest destroyer the States made.  It was built in 1941 and was only retired after the Gulf war.
These days are still very hot, and back at the boat after dinner out, we still couldn't stay inside the boat.  We read up on deck for quite some time before hitting the hay.
Next morning, we headed out towards the official start of the ICW.  We went as far as a place called Great Bridge still in Virginia.  It was a good first taste of the ditch, with its lifting bridges, big boats, barges, etc., etc....

Great Bridge, Virginia (name of town and bridge)

At Great Bridge, VA there is first a lock then a lift bridge right next, that are synchronized; you enter the lock from the north and by the time you get through the lock the bridge is ready to open on the hour.  We tied up at a free dock just below the bridge for the night.  The free docks are great except there is generally no services attached to it, and this one is no exception.  There are a couple very full port-a-potties in the park that is there, but nothing else.  No water, no power etc., but the price is right.  We walked into the little town and found groceries, a bakery and yippee a DQ...had my usual. We also found some ice for our little fridge.  We don't have solar power attached yet to keep our little fridge going, so ice blocks it is when we're unplugged.  It's still hot out today, but a cold front is expected over the next couple days, which also means small craft warnings.

The caravan south....

We met a lovely couple that have been a wealth of knowledge for us, as they've done this trip 17 times.  Charlie went over our charts to show us of all the tricky spots, places to anchor or neat places to be sure to visit, and mostly told us off by heart!!  I'm sure there are more spots because of Hurricane Matthew, but these ones are perpetual problem areas he's told us about.  There are a couple websites and apps that have live updates about the condition of the ICW posted by fellow sailors ahead of us.
We ended up staying in Great Bridge for 3 nights because of the small craft warnings.

Along the ICW

So today its the 23rd of October and we moved on from Great Bridge to a place called Coinjock, and officially in North Carolina.  There are lift or swing bridges all along the ICW at different points for either trains or vehicle traffic.  Some lift or swing on request or others have a specific schedule they go by.  The fixed bridges only have a clearance of 65 feet so that prevents some sailboats going along the ICW.  We're good, only 50 feet is ours.  We arrived at the first lift bridge of the day along with four power boats and 6 sailboats all trying to hold in the channel that's as wide as in the picture above, while waiting for the 8:30 am opening.  There is a current as well as wind, so it can make for some sketchy situations.  All along the edges are stumps and dregs that lurk at the edge of the ICW waiting to catch any unwary captain.  We touched something today in the middle of the channel, likely an old log.  When the big power boats roll through they often don't have a speed limit to adhere too, so its not uncommon for deadheads to be dislodged or old waterlogged stumps and logs to suddenly be churned up.  It's Sunday today and I'm not looking forward to meeting up with barges and tugs tomorrow in the narrow sections when the work week starts again.

Mobile duck blind with dog

We only had two lift bridges today so eventually all the vessels settled themselves into an order that fit their individual speeds.  We followed North Landing River in Currituck Sound to Coinjock. The wind was boistrous, we've been in worse, however, we have to stay on a very restrictive route here as it gets very shallow very quickly outside the marked channel.  We have to watch the channel markers behind and in front of us to make sure we stay in the channel because the wind can push you off your line.

The marina we didn't stay at...

This spot consists mainly of two marinas a few houses and a small trailer park.  The marina across the way that we didn't stay at... was rafting those big stinkpots two and three deep.  Not sure that a barge and tug going through will be very happy as it sure narrows up the channel.  We're starting to notice places that have been hit by Hurricane Matthew.  Neither of the two marinas have their pump out service back up and running as there are still too many homes that need to be pumped out first.  The marina we're at had two feet of water over the docks.  It took out their fuel pump as well.  I noticed they are still drying out carpet in the office area.
I think I will end this blog or I'll never get it up on the web.  The internet here is very sssllllloooowww, so not many pictures this time.