20 October 2021
Bluewater Yachting Center, Hampton, VA

No boat travel.

Since the person to help us with the fuel problem did not come yesterday, we signed up for another night at Bluewater Yachting Center. While waiting for him to come today, I decided to do the laundry. When I walked back to the boat with my folded clothes, I passed the truck, so I figured the guy would already be at the boat. As it turned out, he, Dave, followed me down the long dock all the way to our boat without me even realizing it.

 

Dave and Clark worked from around 12:30 when Dave arrived until 3:30 removing the 200 gallons of bad fuel oil – one 20-gallon drum at a time.  Then for the next hour, they moved some fuel from the starboard tank to the port tank and used the fuel polishing system to clean out any residual bad fuel from the engine. Dave left around 5:00. At that point we had 14% of a full tank on the port side and 24% of a full tank on starboard. Time to go buy more fuel.

With plans to leave in the morning, Clark said we needed to get the holding tank pumped out tonight. So, we pulled in the lines and the power cord and set off for the pump-out station. Clark’s plan was to do the pump out and then take the boat for a quick run to make sure everything looked in order. However, after completing the pump-out, we passed by the fuel dock and found a too-good-to-pass-up fuel price for diesel. We decided to fuel up right then as opposed to waiting until tomorrow.

We added about 514 gallons of fuel and won the prize of a volume discount that kicked in at 500 gallons. Sadly, the pump had the slowest fill ever. We sat at the fuel dock from 5:30 until almost 7:00 watching the dial on the fuel pump slowly tick away the gallons and dollars.

The sun went down as we sat at the fuel pump. We canceled our plans to cruise around to check out the fuel work. If the work was not successful, we just wasted a lot of money putting over 200 gallons in the tank! 

We tied up at our assigned dock at 7:15 in the dark. Fortunately, the woman on a neighboring boat came and helped with our lines.

 

Sunset view from the marina fuel dock

21 October 2021
Depart: Bluewater Yachting Center, Hampton, VA 8:15
Arrive: Public Creek North, North River, NC (just south of Coinjock Marina) 6:30
Distance: 88 nm

 Clark told me before I went to bed last night that “because tomorrow would be a short day”, we would go for a walk in the morning. Then we would take a cruise down a nearby waterway we have not been on before to do some sightseeing before continuing on our way south. This lovely bedtime story turned out to be fairy tale.

At 7:00 this morning, Clark got out of bed saying we needed an early start to the day to get as far along on our way south as possible. What happened to a leisurely and short travel day?! Clark said that a boat in the marina woke him up using the boat thrusters. Poof! Fairy tale gone!

Before leaving, Clark took time to fill our water tanks, and then we were on our way south – no walk, no short sightseeing cruise, no short travel day.

As we approached Norfolk, I told Clark not to take a hundred pictures of battleships. I already have a lot of battleship pictures – many of them duplicates or triplicates from prior trips.

Naval fuel barge with tug

Tug "Connie Ann" underway with man
on very top putting up flags
(would not want to be him!)

Right after we passed under the Norfolk-Portsmouth RR bridge, the bridge came down. The tender must have been waiting for us to pass. On the other hand, as we approached the Old Virginia Railroad Bridge, the bridge came down right in front of us. We sat there waiting for a very slow, but thankfully short, train to appear and creep by. 

Train on the Old Virginia RR bridge

Just as it looked like the train would exit the bridge, it stopped. Finally, it continued on its way and 20 minutes after we arrived at the bridge, the bridge went up and we could proceed.

Don't stop there! Just a little bit further please!

Some other Norfolk, non-battleship pictures:

New I-64 bridge under construction

Next, as we approached the Southern #7 Railroad Bridge, we heard boat and bridge tender chatter about travel delays. We arrived at the bridge at 10:30. Apparently, we were lucky as we only had to wait 20 minutes here. We did not know how long the boats already sitting there ahead of us had been waiting.

Some of the chatter we heard from the bridge talk was that there were “about 30 boats” queued up waiting for the lock at Great Bridge. The bridge tender announced to those of us waiting to proceed that it would be into the afternoon before we got through the lock-bridge combo.

Later, as we neared the lock, we joined the end of a long line of boats bobbing in place waiting to pass through the lock. It looked like the bridge tenders announcement would be an accurate one.

Joining the end of a long line of boats 
waiting for the lock

Not surprisingly, we missed the 11:00 and the 12:00 bridge openings. However, we were very lucky to get the last available slot on the port side of the lock lined up for the 1:00 bridge opening. 

Note: The lock and Great Bridge bridge are next to each other and work their schedules in tandem.

The line of sailboats behind us would have to wait for the 2:00 bridge opening.

We exited Great Bridge at 1:10 p.m. 

Our delays for the day continued as we had two, low, swing bridges to deal with before it would be clear sailing for us. We had a relatively short wait for the Centerville Turnpike Bridge to prepare to open. Just before the bridge did open, the tender announced, “This is a slow bridge. It takes about 3 minutes to open.” One of the boaters in line for the bridge replied, “That will be the shortest wait of the day!”

Unfortunately, the next bridge in line, the North Landing Bridge, is scheduled to open on the same schedule as the Centerville Bridge, i.e. on the hour and half hour. Sadly, at our travel speed, we could not make the next opening at North Landing Bridge. As we neared thay bridge, we saw the bridge closing meaning we had to wait for almost half an hour for the next opening.

 All told, it took 3 hours longer than usual to travel 28 nautical miles, but the worst part of the day was behind us. We were glad that we had fueled up the day before. If we had added fueling time to today’s agenda, it would have made it an even harder day.

When we locked through, we were behind a 65-foot boat named “Imagine”. The captain told me that he tried to get a spot for the night at Coinjock Marina but could not get in as they were fully booked for the night. As we passed by Coinjock Marina, we were amazed at the number of huge boats docked bow-to-stern along the dock.

Boats lined up on Coinjock dock

As the sun got lower and lower in the sky, I anticipated dropping our anchor after the sun went down. I was correct. The sun disappeared behind trees just before we reached the anchorage Clark chose for the night.

Sunset near our selected anchorage

Later, after a quickly-prepared dinner of leftovers, I stepped outside briefly to look at the full moon. When I came back in, a swarm of mosquitoes came rushing into the boat with me. I used a hand vacuum to suck them up. No way would I venture back outside with the camera as I planned!

What a ridiculous day this turned out to be! On the bright side, I am not aware of any gremlin-related boat issues today. Maybe things are looking up.