Mother’s Day
Sunday, May 9, 2021
Not every Mother’s Day can measure up to this one. Mike said I got three things for Mother’s Day—iced coffee, no dishwashing and a bridge opening. He over delivered on the bridge openings—five bridges (one a railroad bridge closed for a train) to be opened. That alone would have been plenty for any boating day but we got to enjoy a lock transit as well. The section of the ICW from Coinjock, NC to Norfolk, VA had plenty of challenges.
We had carefully planned our pace on the approach to the first bridge to arrive at 12:30pm for the half hour opening. The reasoning was that the next bridge was about 5 miles further on –a distance that would need nearly an hour. Then the third bridge was only 3 miles beyond that—a thirty-minute type journey. Bridge 3 only opened on the hour (and is associated with the joyous lock) so working backwards, we needed to hit the initial bridge on the half hour. The planning was good; the execution was flawed. Somehow we arrived at Bridge #1 at 12:10. There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the interval until the bridge opened. This is the stressful part of navigating through these swing bridges. The rest of the plan worked out pretty well.
The lock was tricky because there was nobody on land to help with lines and we needed to reach with a boat hook to wrap a loop of line for the bow, spring and stern lines, around cleats on the top of the lock wall. It was exciting but turned out fine. After the lock and several more bridges we arrived at the marina shortly after 4pm. The docking was quite challenging on account of the wind (now gusting to 15+ knots) blowing directly across the slip. It took a bit of effort to get lined up but Mike was able to back the boat into the slip. We got some help from a dock-hand who took lines from us. We are both very happy to be here and very tired.
Gloria
36 49.867 N, 76 17.760 W
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