Much of today (our one week anniversary of our arrival in Norfolk) was spent caucusing with our marina mates and sifting through various bits of information gleaned from fellow boaters, websites, phone calls to the Dept of Public Works and the Army Corps of Engineer personnel. At issue was determining how much damage has been done by Matthew to the infrastructure of the ICW in our vicinity. In order to know when resumption of travel south is possible and safe, its essential to find out which restricted opening bridges and locks are operational and if stretches of the ICW have been closed by the Coast Guard.
Earlier in the day many of us in the marina got information that there was a bridge 20 miles south of us that was closed due to a power outage from Matthew. We thought that was our only obstacle and if power was restored we could possibly get underway again as early as tomorrow morning. Then we discovered the alert pictured below about the rest of the ICW in our neck of the woods. As you can see, there’s a much bigger problem than just that one bridge, and what you see below is only a partial list of closed sections. We’re hoping to wake up to a better report tomorrow, but odds are we’ll be here at least one more day.
In between these sober conferences, Tommy and I had time to meet a fellow Packet 420 owner, Jack, and were pleased to show him the boat and hear about his. Jack keeps it in Norfolk and we actually had seen it and remarked on it during one of our walks around the harbor . If we are still in town tomorrow night, Jack may bring his wife for a tour.
We went to lunch with our group of new friends at Freemason Abbey, whose history states it ” has served as a gathering place in one form or another since it’s inception in 1873 as a Second Presbyterian Church”. In its current manifestation it is a charming homey restaurant, featuring excellent she-crab bisque.
After lunch, Tommy and I felt the need to move around, and after a 2+ week hiatus we finally pulled on our running duds and had a leisurely 5 mile jog around town. Then we added our sweaty clothes to the swelling laundry sacks in our anchor locker. We then dragged the sacks to the Sheraton which accommodates self-serve laundry needs for the boaters at Waterside marina.
Once done, it was dark and getting late and cool. We had a nice dinner at a delicious seafood restaurant and a relaxing end to a physically pleasant, but somewhat mentally taxing day. The featured picture for this post is one we took of C Ghost in her slip after we came back from dinner tonight.
5 Responses
Hey Tom – I enjoy reading about your adventures. Sorry that Matt messed things up :-). However, you’re having much more fun than those of us at work. How are the solar panels working?
Gary – up until yesterday, we had 8 straight days of heavy cloud cover and didn’t get very much out of our panels. It didn’t matter that much since we were in a marina and “plugged -in”. Had we been at anchor though, we would have had to run the generator a fair amount. There’s a good amount of sunshine in the forecast for the next several days though, and we won’t be plugged-in during that time so I’ll give you another report on the weekend.
This may not be worth while, but if ICW continues to stay closed, what about checking out taking the Dismal swamp canal to by-pass some of the northern portion of the ICW? That canal may not be open, but I heard some people wanted to ride out the hurricane in the canal because there is no tide rise, supposedly.
Woof, Woof
As of this morning, Dismal Swamp is currently closed (Coast Guard). High water and lots of debris. One of the two restricted bridges we need to get through on the Virginia Cut reopened this morning (Centerville), but the North Landing bridge is still without power. It’s being worked on now so we have some hopes of it opening today. If it does, we can go about 60 miles (2 days for us) before getting to the next trouble spot.
C Ghost looks so pretty guys! She’s a handsome vessel! I hope you can get underway soon. Be safe and have fun!