2006.11.21

We are hunkered down in a place called Great Bridge Virginia. We slept here last night and actually left early this morning in the hope of getting a little further south before the weather got worse later on today but when I contacted the marina at Coinjock North Carolina, the gentleman at the other end discouraged us from coming down as the wind on the sound was getting up and going up to 45knots... he said we might get blown out of the channel and go aground and basically added that nobody was moving today, so we 3 boats turned around after 3 miles, we were very happy to see that our dock was still available and tied up to it rapidly.

After doing some mast climbing (not us, Jacqueline climbed up herself and we had to hoist Andre up which was work enough) we decided to go for a walk and get some lunch, which we did at a nice little italian place called "Andrea's".

We are now back on board where we can piggyback on the marina across the canal's system as we sit at our FREE docks...also without electricity which means no HEAT... well, we have the Origo alcohol heater but it is not measuring up...but I have wifi and I soon will go under our sleeping bags and tuck into Sarum again.

Yesterday was quite amazing, we went through Norfolk, Virginia where there is a sizable part of the North Atlantic US Navy fleet... very impressive I have not seen some much grey paint in my life, airplane carriers, destroyers,submarines , there were also many US coast guard Zodiac equiped not with one but two MACHINE GUNS zooming around at great speed, I wanted to take a picture but was afraid they would catch me and confiscate my camera... some spy I would make!
It was a gorgeous albeit a little fresh day and we finally entered the famous ICW that we have been reading about for so long with its many bridges, some of which open only once an hour so if you do time it well you might have to wait like we did at that one for 50 minutes. We gave the "Great Dismal Swamp Canal" junction a miss as we would not fit vertically at the top nor the bottom...it is rather shallow and our mast does not fit under the bridges .

Well that's it for today, it is an utterly miserable day, raining, windy but no snow... yet! I just looked at the weather channel, 47 F which is 11C... still a little warmer than Montreal BUT NOT IN OUR FLAT!!