A Lock, A Bridge Delay, A Spectacular Undocking, and Exploring Hampton

Chesapeake to Hampton, Virginia – 23 nautical miles sailed, 8 kilometres walked, 2 miles in dinghy

At 7am we were in a lock, the first in many months, and it was an easy one. After we passed through I reminded Ana that this was the last lock of the trip for her, as there are no more between here and New York City. That made her smile.

We arrived an hour later to the Gilmerton lift bridge and accompanying Norfolk Southern railway bridge. Sadly, we were informed the railway bridge would be delayed an hour for maintenance, so I shut off the boat engine and Ana and I did a lengthy stretching workout from my new Stretching Journal then enjoyed a leisurely breakfast as we floated around in the bay. Well, the hour delay turned into two and a half hours, and by the time we were finally let through, gathered there were six other sailboats, two motor yachts, and a giant barge being pushed by three tugboats. The wind had also cranked up to over 20 knots creating a circus of boats circling each other, trying to keep away from the shallow edges of the bay. There was also some interesting chatter on the VHF radio.

“Has anybody gotten an update from the bridge, over?”

“They told me it’s a faulty button and they can’t get it to open, over.”

“It’s a problem with a button, over?”

“They probably couldn’t afford a spare with the 100% tariff, over.”

“That’s not it, the damn button on this ancient bridge is from 1905, there are no spares, over.”

“Having a transmission problem so I’m tossing out my anchor. You guys will all have to go around me, over.”

We finally arrived in Norfolk and stopped at the Ocean Yacht marina to fill up with diesel and water, and were instructed by the dockmaster to pull up to the first pump as the second was inaccessible due to a Canada goose who had laid eggs in a dock planter and her protective husband was terrorizing anybody who got close, even the Navy Marines who arrived in their camouflaged machine gun boat and had to do the prone army crawl to get by the vicious honker. I sent Ana out to do the water hose while I guarded her from the deck with a long boat hook, which I’d redeployed as an anti-goose device. In the midst of all the action, the gusting winds blew our favourite bucket off the dock and we couldn’t reach it. Once all the tanks were filled we were ready to go, but needed a solid plan to handle the hurricane winds as the channel was tight and there was little margin for error. With a highly advanced boating maneuver, never before seen in these parts, we simultaneously released the dock lines, and as SeaLight was blown away, I fought the goose from the bow with one boat hook (and excellent fencing form) while Ana fished out the bucket with the other. Once the goose was subdued and bucket safely back on board, I dashed back to the cockpit and applied just enough thrust and wheel to allow SeaLight to exit the marina channel completely sideways, while Ana performed a sequence of bows and victorious arm gestures for the Navy Marines, who were cheering vociferously from the dock and shooting rounds off into the sky. It was a beautiful thing.

We motored right through the insanely busy Norfolk harbour, crossing Mile 0 of the ICW and dodging tugs and barges and naval warships and container ships and fishing boats and aircraft carriers and catamarans and this one vessel that looked like a massive greenhouse on the water, as the winds gusted to 30 knots, stirring up sizeable waves. We finally made through the channel and across the bay to a well-protected anchorage at the neighbouring city of Hampton, Virginia. With the delays we didn’t arrive until close to 3 pm, but we took the dinghy into shore and started walking, still excited to explore the hidden pleasures of Hampton. Well we didn’t find much for pleasures, hidden or apparent. The neighbourhood high street of Phoebus near the dinghy landing was deserted, the wind-driven gravel and dust during the bridge walk across the ICW provided an unpleasant facial exfoliation, the Hampton downtown was not just deserted, but completely dug up, the vehicle traffic was horrendous, some streets stunk of rotting garbage, and we had a general feeling of uneasiness throughout. After eight kilometres of unfulfilling exploration we dinghy’d back to SeaLight and had a lovely sundowner in the cockpit and a nice chat with Kate on Waddington as they were back in the US of A after a pleasant Gulf Stream crossing the day before.

While Ana was cooking dinner for six (leftovers for tomorrow’s big ocean run), I had a great chat with my dad, step-mom, my aunt Maxine, and uncle Ron. The folks were staying with my aunt and uncle for a couple of days in Saskatoon, while they waited for their new condo to be ready to move into. I was really happy to speak with my aunt and uncle again as it had been quite a while and I was thrilled to hear that things were going well for them. Maxine is a voracious reader and is one of those crazy, retired people who reads these journals of mine every day. Ron tells me she really enjoys all the foul language I use and is especially fond of the graphic sex scenes. Maxine has always been a frisky one.

I do not return to my job until August so I’ve booked a solo two-week trip to Saskatoon at the end of June and am incredibly excited to get home to see everybody, as I have not been back for far, far too long. The best part is my sugar momma will be back to work, my sugar daughter will be at her YMCA summer job and probably weekend shifts at the shoe store, and my sugar son will be working both at Glenhyrst and at Eastside Marios so I plan on tapping them for a sizeable travel allowance, commensurate with the level of luxury demanded by prairie vacation. I'm not too proud to beg for money, and if you can't count on family, who can you count on?