April 20 to 26th. Coinjock to Fishing Bay

On Thursday, April 20^th, we left Coinjock in the morning and were able to sail most of the North Landing River.  On our way we passed dozens of osprey nests of all shapes and sizes.  One of the osprey nests looked like it was two stories, some of the other birds seem to be joining the tiny house movement and only had a few sticks on a day marker platform.

We were able to tie up at one of the free docks in Great Bridge in the early afternoon which gave us time to walk to the grocery store and reprovision.  When we returned to the boat we went for a short walk in the woods, then  had drinks on CURLEW with Thierry and watched the rowing teams practice.

Friday morning we were up bright and early with a plan of going through the 7:00 a.m. bridge and lock opening.  Luckily, Thierry reminded us that the Gilmerton bridge is restricted in the morning so we decided to wait until the 8:00 opening.  This delay gave us time to go for a walk on the trails by the canal and we were fortunate to see hundreds of lady slippers growing wild in the woods.

The contrast between the peace and beauty of the rivers and canals through the woods and the industry in Norfolk is hard to adequately describe.  The noise from the traffic, barges, construction equipment, airplanes, helicopters, and constant radio chatter among the commercial and pleasure boats and the bridge tenders along with watching out for the marine traffic of every conceivable shape and size while waiting for a bridge to open is a sensory shock.  The navy ships and the containers ships are so huge that the scale is hard to put into context. 

We stopped for fuel at Ocean Marine and then were able to sail through Norfolk which was a lot of fun.  After we started up the Chesapeake Bay the wind turned light and variable so we had to motor for the rest of the day.  As we were passing Mobjack Bay we were besieged by hundreds of biting flies.  We used the autopilot so we could spend our time swatting flies.  Eventually we had to use buckets of water to wash the fly carcasses off the deck.

We anchored in Fishing Bay and ended up spending the next three days on the boat due to wind, rain, and frequent thunderstorms. We read books, I spent some time knitting, we did some miscellaneous boat chores, and Bill changed the oil.

Mostly, we went kind of stir crazy, but at least we had plenty to eat. One day I was so bored and cold I made pretzels.  I am often asked what we eat on the boat.  Our dinner menu for the last week:  chicken marsala, chili, sausage with peppers and rice, shephard’s pie, pork tenderloin, pizza, and pasta carbonara.