Day 183: End of the ICW

Coinjock Marina to Tidewater Marina, Portsmouth, VA (docked)

July 17, 2022

Leaving Coinjock was easy today – we just pulled away from the dock and heading up the river. It’s another 50 mile day with a bunch of restricted bridges and a lock that may slow us down.

The US Coast Guard does frequent announcements via VHF but they often speak very quickly. Lailia’s motor is a bit rumbly, too, so we don’t always hear everything. Today we heard about an issue with the North Landing Bridge which is on our route, so we telephoned the bridge tender. This bridge has one span that does not open so the passageway is narrow, but not too narrow for Lailia!

There’s often odd things to see along the way. Today it was a cannon in someone’s yard facing the river. We have no idea why it’s there.

We also had to go through the Great Bridge Bridge right before we went through the Great Bridge Lock. This bridge is timed so that boats going north will arrive at the lock together.

I was getting pretty excited about getting to through a lock!

There were three boats in the lock – Mighty Aphrodite was in front of us and a barge was on our starboard, tied to the other wall.

Once we were all secured, the lock gates were closed. I assumed that water would rush in and we would rise and it would so cool.

It was pretty disappointing. We probably moved up a foot but it was barely perceptable. This lock doesn’t raise boats over any obstacles – it’s used to help protect the salinity/fresh water on the two sides of the lock.

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As we got closer to Portsmouth and Norfolk we began to see much more industrialization, traffic, and huge shipyards. The Norfolk Naval Yard is huge, stretching for miles along the river.

My dad was a welder in the Philadelphia Navy Yard just prior to his enlistment in the Army Air Corps during World War II. With all the technologies that exist today, there are still welders doing the same type of work that he did all those years ago.

The naval ships require even more clearance under bridges so there’s lift bridges along this stretch. These bridge have sections that are elevated the middle.

The Portsmouth/Norfolk harbor is huge and filled with so many types of boats.

Arriving here means that we are at mile marker (MM) 0 – we crossed over to the Bahamas from No Name Harbor at MM 1096.

We’ve gone well over 2500 miles when we add in our Bahamas adventures. We’re definitely not finished traveling.

This marina has a restaurant in it. Apparently folks get mixed up trying to get to it, so they had special signs made.

The best part of the day was having dinner with Jack Lynn. I have known Jack since I was a college student. Jack’s one of the good guys and John and I were happy that Jack drove from Williamsburg to join us.

We are working our way north towards the Annapolis area since I will be flying out of BWI airport next week to lead some workshops in Austin, TX. Tomorrow we plan to go to Deltaville, VA, which is a small boat-oriented town. They call themselves “The Boating Capital of the Chesapeake” so maybe they will have the part we need for our water system.