October 27, 2011
We departed Portsmouth, VA this morning @ 0730 hrs for Great Bridge, VA. It's only 12 miles down the ICW but you have to wait on bridge openings that don't begin until 0930 hrs. Also, there is one lock to negotiate. By the time one has cleared all the bridges and locked-thru, it's 1030 hrs and too late to make the next 40 miles to Coinjock at SM 50. It is imperative to find an anchorage before dock on this ICW. The first available anchorage is at Blackwater Creek @ MM 30. The next one is Buck Is @ MM 60.
Since there were two other Valiants staying in Great Bridge, we decided to have a "gam" with them and ended up spending the evening at a "free dock". One of the Valiant owners has circumnavigated twice! There is a Wx system that will move through early tomorrow morning with winds gusting over 30 kts from the NW-N. I'll have to take a good look at it and decide weather or not to procede to Coinjock which is 40 miles down the ICW. I don't want to do this with howling winds and rain. There is nothing easy about the boating life. We have set up an ambitious goal to reach the South Pacific. There is a lot of joy and misery involved in getting there. The most frustrating for me are the equipment failures. Right now that hot water heater issue needs to addressed. If tomorrow brings bad Wx, I'll get on it.
It was a beautiful fall day with temperatures in the upper 70's. The ICW is quite beautiful and the foliage is starting to change. We have 200 miles of this until we exit at Beaufort, NC and make a run to Charleston, SC in the coastal waters.
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