Welcome to Virginia...

We left Coinjock Marina this morning at 8:50am, for us, a very early start. When we got up at 7:30am all the boats on the 1100 ft. dock, with the exception of 3, had already left for the day. Our first task was to cross the Currituck Sound, which turned out to be particularly nervewracking. It was the shallowest large piece of water that we have been in to date. In the channel was a comfortable 7-12 feet depth, but 10 ft. out of the channel and you would be aground. A boat from the marina that left before we got up was calling BoatUS Tow and reporting that he was aground. We passed within 40 ft. of "Fiji" who was hard aground. We then entered the Albemarle/Chesapeake Canal and then the sourthern branch of the Elizabeth River, which leads into Norfolk, VA. This 40 miles is home to numerous bridges and 1 lock. Consequently, if you time one bridge right, the next one you will have to sit at until it opens. We timed most of the bridges right but badly mistimed the lock and arrived 45 minutes early. Nothing to do but drift in place until the lock opens. After the lock we entered into the most congested industrial megamess that we have ever seen. Tugboats, naval boats, barges, etc. everywhere and still, the bridges. We wound our way through 5 miles of this and tied up at Waterside Marina at mile marker '0' on the ICW. We now have to change chart books. We are out of the ICW and I have to say, I miss it already. It was shallow and narrow but at least it was beautiful and you got to know the other boaters traveling with you. We are now on the very large, inpersonable, deep (15-25 ft), prone to roughness, Chesapeake Bay. We may be staying in Norfolk for a couple of days as a front comes through. The winds are expected to increase to 20 mph and the seas to increase to 3 ft. tomorrow and Wednesday. We could travel in that but it wouldn't be comfortable. We're still trying to decide what to do. Ken

Linda here- Currituck Sound was shallow, as Ken said, but very pretty. I'm so glad I don't live near this heavily-industrialized area that we had to go thru- but I'm sure all the people we saw working do something that affects all of our lives in some way! It seemed like BIG transporting of STUFF-but we really couldn't see what the stuff was!

I loaded the following pictures so that chronologically they are backward. For the pictures and comments to make sense you should go to the last picture and then scroll upward to the first.Ken



This is outside "Nauticus" Maritime Museum down the street from us- there are carp in the pool beneath this mermaid.

This is the battleship "Wisconsin" just down the street from us. It draws 37 feet!!

Ken poses with the"Lonesome Sailor" monument to all past present and future navy personnel. We have no idea what Cory is a monument to!

These mermaids are all over the downtown area- like the decorated cows in West Hartford center, or the bears in Berlin, Germany. It's a pretty neat area with a huge park for Cory to run!

These are 'escort carriers,' the smallest of the aircraft carriers. We just learned that at the Nauticus Maritime Museum. The Navy didn't seem to have a problem with us taking pictures but on the radio we repeatedly heard, "This is United States Navy Warship 75 - the boat at marker 42 state your intentions and destination!" It was very unnerving. We will be passing by that area on the next leg of our journey. If they call me, I'm going to have Linda tell them I'm not home!

How would you like that job? The bridge tender's office is in the building that goes up and down with the bridge. We could see the guy in there.

We ducked under this lift bridge but, if we were bigger, that little house would go way up in the air - just like the picture above this one. Notice the lovely scenery in the background.

This tug was a pain in our rear for a couple of miles. We passed and repassed each other several times. He obviously doesn't know who we are!

Welcome to Norfolk, VA. A real shock after a month of the ICW and beautiful sights.

After the lock the river continued for a short period in a manner very similar to this. On the ICW in this location the green marker is on the right. A small white marker ahead on the left indicates "danger- shoaling." The red marker on the right is for a private opening off the channel.

Entering the last lock of the ICW. The left side is rubber bumpered, the right side is cement. Once in and holding on, on the left side, we dropped a total of 8.4 inches! Then onward to Norfolk, VA!

This is the last bridge that we had to stop for. It is opened at the same time that the lock on the other side opens. It only opens on the hour and we were making such good time that we arrived at 11:12am. Needless to say, we idled and talked with the other boaters for the next 50 minutes.

We caught up to the sportfisherman at one of several low bridges that only opened on the 1/2 hour. His timing was pretty good in this area, so the waits were short.

After the bridge the canal opened up again. The depth is about 10-15 ft. and we were cruising faster than normal, at about 32mph, because we wanted to stick with the large sportfisherman ahead of us who seemed to know the way.

We were making great time until this 4' high bridge brought us all to a halt.

The Albemarle/Chesapeake Canal was a nice waterway. We saw several bald eagles but no pelicans. This is day 3 without seeing any dolphins :(

As we enter the Currituck Sound we see, and hear on the radio, the boat "Fiji", hard aground (that's him on the right). Why he wandered out of the channel is unknown but the penalty was immediate.