Hello Norfolk, Chesapeake Bay Tomorrow!!

We had a very quiet and peaceful night at anchor in Broad Creek and rose at first light to be greeted by fog (and mosquitoes). The photo is of the eerie sunrise over still water through fog. It was actually much thicker than the photo depicts, and caused a bit of concern navigating out of the creek and back into the ICW. Only touched bottom once, no biggie.

The trip to Norfolk involved straight runs up the river, then meandering following the upper creeks, finally giving way to a canal across to the Elizabeth River. Oh yes, and smashing mosquitoes that had managed to get into our enclosure, and now could not find their way out. Once in the canal, there were 5 opening bridges and one lock to contend with. Luckily, by leaving early, we were able to get to the final bridge about 10 minutes before it closed for 2 hours for rush hour. Great planning. Sure, I'd actually planned to be there an hour before we did, so luck (or the lack thereof) had a lot to do with it. This put us into Norfolk at 4:30 in the afternoon.

We elected to select a marina in Portsmouth, which is across the river from Norfolk, on the grounds that we had never been there before, so it was worth a look. The marina was right next to the Portsmouth historic district, which is very nicely restored, and we were told that it was our lucky day, since it was restaurant week, and there should be specials galore. So, map in hand, we walked into town. Like I said, nice place, but not much open after 5 except the bars and restaurants, which were all fairly basic. However, we had a very nice dinner, and walked back, concluding from the number of street people and number of police cruisers, that Portsmouth was a fairly rough town that was trying to clean up its act. Still, there were some nautical antique shops that had awesome window displays of maritime memorabilia- everything from brass portholes to full sized binnacles and ships running lights. If you need this stuff, check it out here.

Off tomorrow for Deltaville and some Chesapeake Bay sailing. Finally!!

Rob