April 23, 2012.
I just finished up the
math and we've covered about 775 miles in 8 days. With only one
overnighter on the ocean that's some serious hauling butt. We knew
we had 2 days of heavy rain on its way so we really pressed hard to
get to the free wall at the Great Bridge Lock in Great Bridge, Va.
We made it to the wall by
1600 hours on Saturday and the heavy rain arrived on Sunday. Like
the other 7 boats tied to the wall we decided to stay put until the
weather cleared a bit. This gave us the chance to meet Bill and his
wife Sali. I've interacted with Bill on various sailing message
boards for 5 or 6 years now. They picked us up at the boat and
whisked us away and treated us to a really nice lunch at a local
Mexican restaurant. Over the course of our cruising lives we've met
probably 2 or 3 dozen folks that we already had an internet
relationship with. I'm always a little apprehensive when meeting
people that already know so much about us but once again we've yet to
be disappointed.
After bidding our new
friends goodbye Christy and I settled in for the evening. Thats when
it struck us just how freakin' cold it was getting. Rain with no sun
all day forced me to run the generator for the first time in over a
month. As the temps dipped below 50ยบ
Tucker was invited below for the night.
While checking the weather
today we were shocked to see that there’s a large snowstorm making
its way up through the northeast. It seems like its going to stay to
the west of us but there’s still something disturbing about being
at the same latitude as a major snow storm. I mean, its the end of
April fer Christ sake.
On Monday morning the rain
let up for a bit so we decided to knock out a short 20 mile day. We
gathered and stowed our lines and passed through the 1000 lock. As
soon as we were locked through the rain once again resumed. It was
so nasty we had to use our Nav lights to safely transit Portsmouth
and Norfolk. All the bridges cooperated today so we were soon anchor
down in Mill Creek awaiting more favorable conditions to start north
on the bay tomorrow.
The temps never exceeded
60 degrees today. We had the lanterns of warmth & balminess lit
before 1500 even though the warmth from engine is keeping the boat
fairly decent.
4 comments:
OK so I have a totally unrelated question, or maybe content for a new post - why do you choose to go up the ICW instead of going outside? Just curious while trying to learn.
Deb
S/V Kintala
www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com
We wanted to get back to Annapolis ASAP to get back to work. A window might be forecast to arrive in 3 days so you could sit and await the window....but then it closes before it ever opened so you've sat still and made no headway. We just didn't have the luxury of waiting for a weather window that may or may not show up. On the inside you can pretty much move no matter how crappy it is.....
That makes sense, but what about mast height? Ours is 59.5' above the water.
Deb
S/V Kintala
www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com
You have the perfect mast height. A lot of people are very near the ICW bridge standard of 65' and REALLY have to play the tides. The only 2 that I'm aware of that you won't be able to do are the bridge between Cape May, NJ and the Delaware and the Julia Tuttle Bridge on the ICW just north of Miami. They're 55 and 56 feet respectively.
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