Wednesday, April 25, 2012


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:

Deb said...

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

S/V Veranda said...

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.....

Deb said...

That makes sense, but what about mast height? Ours is 59.5' above the water.

Deb
S/V Kintala
www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com

S/V Veranda said...

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.