Norfolk to Chesapeake – 14 nautical miles sailed, 8 bridges, 1 lock, 5 kilometers walked
We learned (re-learned) two big lessons today. First, if you are relying on limited space at a free dock at the end of your day’s journey, leave early. Second, if you need help, ask for it.
I was up at 4:30 working fruitlessly on consolidating our boat tracks onto a Google map so people can see exactly where we’re at. Our charting software Aqua Maps records our boat’s movements in a series of .gpx files and I’ve been trying to get these loaded onto a map but keep running into issues – file size, too many files, format incompatibility. I gave it one last heroic effort today but eventually gave up as it just wasn’t working out. I’ll figure it out.
Even after last night’s route planning, we still weren’t entirely sure what our next leg would be, but after more online research we decided to leave by 1pm to get through a few bridges with scheduled openings plus a lock – one of the very few on the ICW. It became clear that our original plan to cover 42 miles one the first day of the ICW was not going to be possible.
We left early on the dinghy back into Norfolk and found ourselves at low tide with a whole lot of mussels and mollusks stuck to the pilings and ladder we used yesterday. In an ingenious move, I decided to run my middle finger along the edge of a mussel to do a sharpness test. Well, it was sharp, and it carved a nice slice into my finger. We used a series of small fenders and multiple ropes to get the dinghy positioned such that it wouldn’t get sliced to pieces, then we started walking. We wandered down Freemason street which is lined with houses that tell the story of architecture in this part of the country for the past couple hundred years and Ana took some great photos – she has an amazing eye for shots and any great pictures you see on these journals were probably thieved from her phone.
We had hoped to pick up a couple things at a grocery store, but it was a 45 minute walk so we weren’t sure we wanted to spend our limited time trotting down expressways. Fortunately, we found a small general store downtown and picked up what we needed, although we passed on the twelve-dollar sourdough loaves.
In the spirit of Yin and Yang, unity of opposites, and the philosophy of duality, I have learned that I need to balance my lifelong dream of sailing to the Caribbean with a few nightmarish moments, so I accompanied Ana to the mall. Ass, meet bench. Bench, here comes my ass. I did have a nice chat with an ex-New Yorker working at a kiosk selling perfumed powders. There was basically nobody in the mall besides us so I guess he was looking for company. I also browsed through a student art gallery and took a photo of one interesting piece. Ana bought a pair of fancy shoes for five bucks, so I now had to decide which of my shoes I was going to have to jettison to make room for those beauties.
We were hoping to visit the Nautica and warship exhibit but found out it was closed on Mondays, but we wouldn’t have had sufficient time with our altered plan so we’ll have to catch that one on the way back up.
We returned to the boat, Ana made us a delightful pancake lunch, then we were off, ready to face bridge number one for our first leg of the ICW. Well, the first bridge was a railway bridge that is usually open, but was closed for a train. We waited for a full hour, circling in the bay between a massive container ship on one side and a humongous aircraft carrier on the other with a Navy patrol boat with bow mounted machine gun patrolling around. A train finally appeared, then stopped and went backwards, then forwards, then backwards again, taunting us mercilessly. The train finally cleared the bridge and it began lifting at an altogether glacial pace, but it finally rose enough for us to get through. As we passed beneath the giant guillotine, I noticed a huge log floating in the water to our side that had two big steel spikes protruding from it. I kept my eyes on the water.
The next bit of anxiety came when we had to pass under the first fixed, low bridge. The minimum height of fixed bridges on the ICW is set at 65 feet, and the top of our mast and various attached gadgets comes in at about 61.5 feet. But we’ve read online that tides and winds can impact water levels so you don’t always get your full 65 feet. We both looked up nervously as we passed gingerly beneath the bridge, but fortunately there was several feet of clearance and we breathed signs of relief. There are going to be dozens or hundreds of more like this, but it’s good to get the first one over with.
We arrived at the lock with a thin film of anxiety after remembering the challenging locks in the Erie Canal. We had to wait a while for a huge barge and tugboat to exit, then us and three other boats entered and got tied up. Strangely, after the gates closed and the water started to drop, it only went down about eight inches…then the forward doors started to open and the lockmaster said we were good to go. Whew. The other difference here is that boaters had plastered the rubber bumpers in the lock with their own personalized boat stickers. How did we forget to get SeaLight stickers made??
After the lock there were two free public docks for transiting boaters plus a small marina. The first dock was full, then after clearing a lift bridge we were disappointed to see the second dock was full too, and it sure didn’t look to be 400 feet long as advertised in our cruising guide. We glided over to the marina as there was space available near their fuel dock but a worker there shoo’d us away. We didn’t know what to do as there were no more anchorages here and a few miles down the ICW was a swing bridge that would not be opening until after dark, and we didn’t want to be on the ICW in the dark. We thought about asking one of the sailboats at the dock if we could raft with them, but we chickened out and instead kept going in the hopes of finding a place to anchor. Lesson One for the day – don’t be the last to arrive at a free dock or popular anchorage.
We continued for a mile or two and had no choice but to anchor in shallower water just off the channel. We decided to set two anchors to keep us parallel to the boat traffic. I wrestled our rusty secondary anchor out of the anchor hold and a couple hundred feet of rope and tossed it off the stern. But no matter what we tried, we could not get it to set. It dragged and dragged and dragged. I retrieved it, then dropped it into the dinghy in the hopes I could wind it up on a tree or log or something closer to shore. As I was doing that I noticed the anchor didn’t look quite right so I turned it over and found that a bolt had broken loose and it wasn’t ever going to set properly. I motored the dinghy into the shallows while Ana held onto the other end of the rope as the boat swung, then the dinghy engine prop hit a log and died. As we performed this zany anchoring routine, a man sped up to me in a boat and said we couldn’t anchor here…unless we wanted our boat demolished by one of the barges full of steel pipe that regularly transit the ICW overnight and take up the entire channel. So we gathered up the anchors and decided we’d need to go and beg for one of the other boats to let us raft. Lesson Two for the day – ask for help when you need it, not after wasting a bunch of time and making bad decisions.
In the end, everything worked out. Mike and Carla in their 46 Hunter “Let’s Sea” were happy to let us raft alongside them, and invited us on board for drinks with another couple they had just met – John and Catherine on their Hanse 40 “Adventure”. Shortly after we got settled, another sailboat arrived in the dark looking for a space and John and Catherine offered up their boat so we helped them get tied up alongside it. They were Tom and Danielle on their Beneteau 41 “Hygge” with two kiddies and a dog. I had a quick chat with them then we returned to the Let’s Sea cockpit for some more great conversation before pulling the plug on the evening around 9:30.
