October 30, 2011.

Remember that whole part about the nice people in Naptown blah, blah, blah. Then there was the whole bittersweet last day of work thing. But I guess it all boils down to the fact that we were really looking forward to getting out of Dodge more than we realized. So much so that while Christy was in the shower on our second day out....we ran out of water. Fortunately, the 2 deck jugs were full so she was able to rinse away the shampoo and such.

We had a list of things to get done before we departed and Christy thought I topped off the water tank while I assumed that she took care of it. So basically we left town with no water. Crap. We'll have to stop and pick up some fuel and fill the water tank while we're at it.

So with that in mind we left Mill Creek at 0730 and headed down through Norfolk. Once again like every year, the Gilmerton Bridge screwed us. Its always something with this bridge, every year its different but its always something. The Gilmerton Bridge sits right next to a railroad drawbridge that is actually fairly busy. We came around the corner and the bridge was already up and several boats were passing through. We were the fourth of five additional boats trying to get through the bridge. She said she had been open too long and she closed the bridge preventing the last 3 of us from making it through the opening. An additional 3 minutes and all of us would have been through.

Shes got to close the bridge so as not to interfere with the schedules of all those people sitting in their heated cars, in park, drinking frappe lappe chinos while talking on their cellphones and playing with their Ipads on a Sunday morning. While we're backing and filling trying to hold position in 20 knots of breeze and getting blown around like leaves in the Walmart parking lot. During the hour long wait for the next scheduled opening another 9 boats showed up to add to the fun......and then the train bridge went down. Crap. After wasting 1 ½ hours at the Gilmerton Bridge we locked through at Great Bridge and made a quick stop at Atlantic Yacht Basins fuel dock.

AYB is the last place that we purchased fuel on our way north in the spring. After our 300 mile round trip to Annapolis and back our fuel tank was down just 12 gallons. The water tank was still filling so I filled 2 deck jugs with an additional 10 gallons of diesel just to allow more time for the water to fill our tank.

Anchorages along the Virginia Cut Route are kind of few and far between. The loss of an hour and a half at the Gilmerton Bridge really put a hurting on our days run. We opted to knock out the crossing of Currituck Sound. But once across the sound darkness was falling to quickly for us to get to the anchorage we pined for just past Coinjock. So for the first time ever we had to stop and tie up on the marina wall in Coinjock. On the downside was the fact that it cost us about 70 dollars to sleep on our own sheets. But the plus side was huge. Internet and electric. Since we were plugged in we ran the heater all night. When we rose this morning it was 38 degrees in the cockpit. Thank God the Gilmerton Bridge screwed us once again or we might have frozen to death.