Saturday, October 13:  Had a nice evening in Deltaville (before the weather came up).  What a nice marina – everything looks new, the buildings, the floating docks, picnic areas, all beautifully landscaped, modern facilities, showers that are actually separate rooms which give you a lot of privacy, a lounge that stays open to who knows when with a TV, coffee and tea, books galore and tons of information about the area, and they have a courtesy car!  So once we got settled in, we decided to take the courtesy car and go to the grocery store for some items we really didn’t need.  So, the car is this 1960’s, or earlier we are guessing, Buick station wagon, and it looked like it had seen better days …ah…quite a few better days.  Now, I’m not complaining because you should be grateful, very grateful, that a marina has a car at all and will let you borrow it to run errands, but this is a good story.    I think the car was brown at one time, and the interior (what was left of it) was brown leather.  Most of it was falling down or falling apart.  None of the controls (which used to be electric) on the passenger side worked, and you could see over the years what frustrated scratching fingernails had done to the panel over the years trying to open the uncooperative window – as if constantly jabbing at the control would finally make it work.  The panel under the driver’s side feet was falling down so as to make it impossible to use the emergency brake which was on the floor by the brake pedal.  And there was this strange snakelike black thing that was coming up out of the middle of the floor which we decided not to touch.  The car was running on fumes, so we decided we had better put some gas in it if we wanted to make it back to the marina.  But the crowning touch to the car was when we pulled into the grocery store parking lot.  As we missed the main entrance, we had to turn left on a side street and turn left again into the parking lot, and the entrance isn’t flat – it goes up a little incline which the car does not handle well.  The underside of the car bounces and scrapes off the macadam and then continues to bounce into the parking space.  Needless to say, with our baseball caps and boat clothes, we looked like something from the Dukes of Hazzard.  Hopefully, the grocery store had seen others like us so the police weren’t called.  Bob got some allergy medicine, which seemed to finish off the allergy problem, we got some cookies (what else?) and then we headed back (uneventfully) to the marina.  There’s a little restaurant called Cocomo’s nearby, and the marina said that if we called them, they would come over and pick us up if we wanted to have dinner there.  So we did.  The nice, young lady on the phone said someone would pick us up at 6:30 p.m. , and at 6:30 we were waiting in the parking lot of the marina for our “ride”.  6:30 comes and goes and at 6:45 we call back.  She’ll find out where he is and he’ll be right over, and a few minutes later, sure enough, here comes our ride in a pick-up truck.  So, off we go, and Bob strikes up a conversation with him, and we find out the nice young man is the chef!  Yikes!  I don’t know what this means.  How can the chef leave his post to pick up diners??  Oh well, we did have a nice dinner, fried oysters for me, Bob ordered a Philly cheese steak, and then the chef took us back to the boat.  Not gourmet eating, but it was nice to get out. 

            Our plan once we get settled in for the night is to plan the next day, check the weather, make any marina reservations – just make sure we sort of know what we are doing the next day and what to expect weatherwise.  So this night, the weather is supposed to be very windy with gusts up to 30 knots, continuing into the morning and subsiding by late morning.  I’m wondering if we will be able to get out of the slip ok, and head to Norfolk.  And sure enough, the wind howled, and the boat pitched and rolled in the slip all night long.   So, now, Saturday morning, it is still windy, but Bob thinks the weather will change, and we better head out as we have a long day ahead of us.  So after a quick breakfast, we leave Deltaville, and sure enough, the wind calms down, we are going in the right direction with the waves, and we make really good time.  We have a reservation at the Hampton Public Town Dock and arrive around 4:00 p.m.  …and, no, we didn’t back into the slip too fast (well, because of the current), and we didn’t hit the back of the pier or cause that little damage to the swim platform…

            We are exhausted, and have turkey soup for dinner, and I am asleep by 8:30 p.m.! 

            Sunday, October 14 – I think today is going to be nervewracking.  (Like I don’t think every day is nervewracking!)  It is the day we go through Norfolk, hit Mile Zero, and are, officially, in the waterway where we have to negotiate eleven bridges, and a lock all within a few hours!  I will say that we could not possibly have picked a better day to go through Norfolk than early on a Sunday morning.  Instead of having to dodge massive fleets of naval warships with guns aimed at us, and commercial vessels navigating the channel every which way – there was NOT ONE BOAT!!!  As we headed into the Elizabeth River, the water was flat as a pancake, the channel was well marked, and it was absolutely no problem.  The only thing I could possibly complain about was the sun was directly in our eyes.  We did hear one disturbing communication over the radio – as we headed into the River, we heard, I suppose the Navy, notifying some errant boater that “artillery aircraft are circling your vessel – please respond on channel…!”  Yikes, we quickly determined that they were not referring to us however!   So, we finally come to Mile Zero (the official start of the ICW!  My vision of it, was that it would be out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by swamp, but, guess what – it’s in the middle of Norfolk surrounded by  commercial high rises, commercial docks, and normal city stuff!  It was still thrilling.  And we got through all the bridges effortlessly.   We were told that you had to be careful about how you timed your speed to each bridge so you wouldn’t have to be waiting around, but, actually, with all the traffic, and the way they are spaced, it is really no problem – we never had to wait – we just breezed right through.  Maybe on the way back it will be different?   So, the next challenge was the lock.  Well that turned out to be nothing also.  As a matter of fact, once we got tied up in the lock, the lock master (lady) came around and gave out chocolate Halloween candy to everybody!  Not a bad introduction to the waterway.   However, it does get more interesting!  So once we get through the lock, the surrounding scenery does turn into something out of a movie that you wouldn’t want to watch alone at night.  The channel does turn very narrow with grotesque looking stumps arising up out of the water on each side and dead and dying trees everywhere.  This scenery, however, takes turns with lots of beautiful marshes that would entice any kayaker to explore.  So, it’s either sunny and desolate, or eerie and desolate.  Both are beautiful in their own way.  So as we are cruising along, the water starts to widen out a little, and we find ourselves following a trawler that’s a little bigger than we are – and we are content to follow along behind him.  However, eventually, both of us come upon a tugboat pushing a barge which slows us down a little and causes the foolish thought that he could be passed.  Well, the boat in front of us calls the barge on the radio and makes arrangements to pass him and all goes well.  So after a while, we decided we could do the same.  So I call the nice barge captain and ask him if we can pass him, and he says yes, and we make arrangements.  Bob is supposed to pass him on his starboard side (right) and so we go for it!  Now when we were following the barge, it seemed to us that he was only going about 4.8 knots, but in reality as we began to try and pass him, he was actually going about 22 knots and the channel which was nice and wide narrowed down to about one foot across.  So here we are – should we go faster, slow down, or should I just have a heart attack and pass out so I don’t know what happens.  Well, Bob starts speeding up, and speeding up, and speeding up, and I look behind our boat, and all I see is gooky, black mud being thrown up by our wake, and then I hear “clunk”.  Thank Heaven the “clunk” didn’t seem to amount to anything, and Bob swears I didn’t hear a clunk – BUT I HEARD A CLUNK!  Then the nice barge captain comes on the radio, and says, “come closer to the barge”.  So I am thinking, “Bob, go hug that baby, man”.  I had visions of running so hard aground that we would be buried in the mud so deep no one would ever find us.   But, by this time, we have actually passed the barge, and my heart rate is going down, and I don’t want any more excitement this day.  We are now headed to Coinjock, NC.  Wow!  We are actually going to be in North Carolina!  I took a picture of the barge, which I will try to post, but the better picture would be a picture of my face as we were attempting this maneuver!  We do start to encounter a larger body of water, but what is so interesting is that there is no water in it – 1 – 2 feet of water on either side of the channel.  It really makes you pay attention to the chart plotter and depth finder!  Well, we finally pull into the marina at Coinjock, and I was never so glad to be tied up in all my life.  What a day!  We make dinner reservations at the restaurant, take a shower, and crash!

            Monday, October 15 – we were so tired yesterday, that we did not plan our next day’s itinerary, and we slept in till 7:45 a.m.!!  I am still tired!  Another nerve wracking day is ahead of us as we have to cross Albemarle Sound (and, of course, people like to tell you horror stories about how bad the crossing can be if YOU  DON’T PICK THE RIGHT WEATHER WINDOW!!  Well, we listen to the weather, and Bob decides even though storms are forecast for this evening, we should get going.  We call and are able to make reservations for a slip at the Alligator River Marina, and Bob says we should be there around 1:00 p.m.  Bob has a great ability to judge the weather correctly, and sure enough, Albemarle Sound (which actually is huge – it looks like the Chesapeake Bay) is calm, the wind is light, and we have a beautiful, non-eventful crossing, and pull into the marina at the appointed 1:00 p.m. and have the rest of the day to relax and catch up on things like this blog.  We did hear another disturbing radio transmission regarding a boat that had strayed into a “live, missile fire exercise”.  Fortunately, again, it wasn’t us, and the boater was directed by the Coast Guard how to “get the heck of there!”  You do have to be careful motoring around in these parts – the marks get moved around because of the changing topography of the bottom of these waters, and you must pay attention!  Right now, we are sitting here, it is hot, we have on summer clothes, and “it’s all good!”