Mile 0

 4/28- Coinjock to Hospital Point (Norfolk)

    We had to use a crow bar and some lubricant to get the boat off the dock this morning. It was literally inches separating us from the boat in front and behind. After a bit of planning we let the bow line off and the bow drifted out into the current. I had someone toss me the stern line and away we went. Almost like we knew what we were doing. 

   The guys at Coinjock are professional boat handlers. They are not kids here for a summer job. They do an amazing job parking the boats. 

    Another interesting thing was the current. It was running pretty strong when we came in. It was so strong they had us turn around and go into the current to dock. When I asked what the current would be like in the morning he said he had no idea. It was not a tidal current. It was driven solely by the wind. Wind pushed water up in the estuaries and then when it relaxed down comes the water. 

    We saw lots of different birds today. There were loads of predator birds hunting in the marshes. We saw eagles and ospreys and several different kinds of hawks. And of course we saw the ever ubiquitous vultures. I did have a pair of Canadian geese herd their brood across in front of the boat and soon after I watched a mother osprey teaching her hatchling to hunt. 

    We wound through lots of low lands and marshes. I think we went through 3 or 4 lift bridges before coming to the Great Bridge bridge. It was on interesting spot on a corner of the river but wide and deep to the edges. From there you enter the Great Bridge Lock. They decided that they would put a barge in the lock with the 6 boats that were with us. The barge went in first and that left only about 15 feet on the side for us. Well we are 12 feet wide so it was a tight squeeze. We were the first boat in so we had to run the length of the barge. Alayne did a great job sliding us through there without hitting anything. The whole thing was kind of a joke as the water only came up a couple of inches and the doors opened. 

    We are now settled in at Hospital Point anchorage in Norfolk. This is a heavily industrialized area with large ships and their associated docking facilities. There are conveyors running up down and every which way. There huge derricks and large cranes all along the waterfront. Norfolk is also home to a major naval shipyard. There are all kinds of warships being built or repaired. We went by at least 3 aircraft carriers in various stages of construction . 

Hospital Point is smack in the middle of the city. There was a large Carnival cruise ship that was right across the river from us and we watched him leave and spin the thing around and take off. The guidebooks all say this is the anchorage that everyone should stay at at least once. Well there’s one more thing off my bucket list. 

  Tomorrow the Chesapeake. We don’t know where yet and we get to leave our bread crumb trail behind and go off on our own. We went 2000 miles on the ICW and we never seriously hit bottom. That is all thanks to the work of Bob Shearer who makes these tracks for fools like me to follow. 

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