July 8

Most of you know Dennis is an early riser and when it comes to boat projects, you might say if it needs doing, he just wants to “Get ‘er done!”  no matter what time of the day it might be.  We’ve already had a diver scrape barnacles off the boat once this trip, and felt gunk once again might be slowing our speed.  I know some of you will find this hard to believe, while others who know him, will find it totally believable that at 6:00 a.m. Dennis was in the water with a long handled brush scrubbing furiously at Auroras green slimy bottom so we could be underway by 7:00.  Well, we left Portsmouth at 7:10 and his early effort seemed to have improved our speed.  What a guy!

Back on the ICW means navigating shallow water and timing the bridge openings.  The weekday schedules are given on the flip charts, but weekends leave us clueless.  At 7:50 we encountered our first bridge and when we called for an opening the tender said it would be at 8:30 coordinating with the Great Bridge Lock at 9:00.  Dropping anchor and waiting was our only option.  And as we’re learning to make good use of our down time, Dennis did some polishing on the stainless, while I trimmed up Fritz during our 40 minute stop.  By 9:15 we were through the bridge, in the lock tied securely and waiting for the water to rise at 9:45, it too coordinated with the 10:00 bridge opening on the south end.  On our way north in May the lock was crowded with 20 boats of all sizes, but this time it was just us.  North gates closed at 9:40 and we rose 3 feet to float Aurora up and motor out the south gates at 9:50.  Passing through the south bridge at 10:00, with the next bridge 4 miles away, meant we would have to go 8 knots to get to the next bridge by 10:30.  Captain pushed the motor up to 3,000 rpms, to do the 8, but the engine started to get hot, so he reduced and we motored slowly to get to the 11:00 opening instead. In those 4 hours we had only traveled 13 miles, but that’s just the way it goes on the ICW.

Coinjock, NC was our destination for the day and we made it in by 3:00 after a very hot run in 100+ degree temperatures.  We are looking forward to the next few days with the forecast for high eighties and good winds.  Bellhaven will be our anchorage on Monday night, and is where we had no cell service for several days, so just know our posts may not be possible while on this part of the ICW, but we’ll catch up when we have service again.

Storm update:  Yesterday we discovered that one of the front dodger plastic windows had been scratched and several holes poked through it during the durecho storm in Atlantic City.  It is kind of cloudy and should have been replaced before we left home, but glad I didn’t get to it as it would now have to be replaced again.  Also, yesterday in Virginia we noticed two power boats submerged, and heard before then of other boats on the Chesapeake.  As of two days ago there were still people without power in Virginia.  

Soooo grateful to be able to do a storm update in our blog rather than being in someone else’s!