Broken Lock

Twelve miles. Twelve measly miles. We left Norfolk yesterday (Monday) and started down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), hoping to get to Coinjock, NC at mile 49. We happened to be travelling with three other sailboats, which was nice, as there are lots of bridges to call and ask for openings, and this took the pressure off us.

Things were going well enough (in spite of the driving rain) until we got to the Great Bridge Lock. The lock keeper couldn't open it. Seriously. So we waited on the north side for about 1/2 an hour, then it opened and they let us in. After waiting for another group of boats that had just come through the last bridge at its scheduled opening, the lock keeper had trouble closing the gate, and we sat for 1 1/2 hours while they worked on the electrical problem before giving up and closing it manually--why it took them so long to come to this conclusion while traffic built up on the southbound side, I don't know. This wasn't a big canal. I'd have been happy to take my turn at the capstan when we entered our second hour of waiting. And all of this for a one-foot drop in the river.

By the time they let us out, we didn't have enough daylight to get to our next anchorage, so we stayed at the free public dock just past the lock and bridge in Great Bridge, VA.

We walked to town, got groceries, and had really bad takeout Chinese food with our neighbors, Tom and Louie, on "Corsair," a 57' schooner. Tom has equipped her with two cutlasses and a cat o' nine tails that he made himself many years ago and kept hanging in his living room until he sold his house last month. We watched "Captain Ron," which they had picked up in a nearby pawn shop, then sank into a deep sleep.

There's yet another gale warning today (yes, even this far inland), so we're staying put at our free dock and trying not to think about the good times to be had at Tina and Ian's, just a few miles behind us.

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