We prepared to leave our dock and head to another free dock in Portsmouth, Virginia. The lock we were behind opens at 8:30am, 11:00am, 1:30pm and 3:30pm. We had assessed the weather and we were only planning on going about ten miles, but we planned on going through the first lock opening. I took Frank for his morning walk and saw some people on the other boats moving about. I inquired if anyone was leaving, and three other boats were going to be locking through with us. Since it was so early, the lockmaster was not in yet. I figured I would let him know we would be going through this morning. He did arrive as we were coming back to the boat and I told him a few of us were planning on coming through, and thanked him for the hospitality of letting us stay there two nights due to the weather. He laughed and said he would normally have us all in for coffee and a ‘talk’ to prepare us for the next leg of our trip up the Chesapeake. He asked where we were from as where we were headed, I had mentioned Norfolk and apparently I didn’t pronounce it correctly, so he told me a story: “picture this- my mother was born and raised here, and in the 1930’s she was a cheerleader in Norfolk high school; they had a cheer, which we used to ask her to do at get-togethers, because it was so funny to hear her do this cheer, even when she was eighty-something years old!…It went like this: Norfolk, Norfolk, We’re the best! We don’t don’t smoke, we don’t drink; Norfolk!” He and I cracked up laughing! If you didn’t get it- Norfolk is pronounced with a soft U and silent L. I went back to the boat and told Lauren about the lesson in pronouncing Norfolk, and we prepared to depart. At about 8:15am we pulled away from the dock and floated in front of the lock. The other boats leaving did the same. Since we were the only non-sailboat, they wanted us to go in first so we would be in front of them, as power boats usually travel faster than sailboats. Once given the ok we pulled in to the lock and tied off following the lock masters direction. Once everyone was in and secured, he gave us all a conch blowing demonstration and told us what to expect for the next few miles. We all waited while the lock filled with water until he finally opened the gates and told us we could proceed out.
We were the lead boat out and made our way up the ICW toward the Chesapeake Bay with everyone else following. Soon we were passing massive commercial boat yards and some had very large military ships in them. Our plan was to stop about ten miles down the river at a free dock at High Street Landing in Portsmouth, Virginia. “Portsmouth was founded as a town in 1752 on 65 acres of land on the shores of the Elizabeth River. The town was founded by William Crawford, a wealthy merchant and ship owner. The 65 acres were part of Colonel Crawfords extensive plantation and were constituted as a town by an enabling act of the General Assembly of Virginia. The town was named after the English naval port of that name, and many of the streets of the new town reflected the English heritage.” We pulled into the small cutout where the dock is and saw only a smallish sailboat docked there. We maneuvered to the far wall and tied off to some pilings. We could see the walkway was just at water level, so if not for the pilings, we would be on top of the walkway! Once secured, we were looking around and saw we were right downtown. There was a bit of pedestrian traffic passing by and a few homeless guys across from us watching. We hung out for a little while before taking a walk around town. We walked around for a while, then came back to the boat. There was a brewery across from us: Legend Brewing, so we decided to order some food. I went and picked it up (and some to-go beers) and we ate lunch on the boat. While eating, we decided this wasn’t the best place to hang out overnight. I got online and found a marina not too far away that only charged a dollar a foot. We had to book it online, so we went ahead and made the reservation. We decided we should leave now that we were done with lunch. We untied from the pilings and I started to pull away, but the current was pushing me back and there wasn’t enough room to gain any momentum! I eased back on the throttle and tried spinning the boat with the engine. This wasn’t working out so well either. We were now being pushed back to the back end of the little square harbor. Hmmm… this was not going as planned. We were now back against the pilings, but I couldn’t get the bow of the boat around and there just wasn’t enough room. A guy emerged from the small sailboat that was there and walked over to us. I was contemplating what to do and he helpfully suggested we run a stern line from the outside of our boat to a piling, and I could use that to pivot the boat with the engine. I had heard of this and it was going through my mind when he suggested it, so I was willing to give it a try. We ran the line from the outside (starboard side) to a piling and I put the boat in forward gear; the boat started to move, then pivot, so I gave it some more throttle… it continued to pivot to the point I was turned enough to head out. At this point he released the line which Lauren quickly pulled in, and we were heading out! Yay! As we came back to the main channel, I followed up with a phone call to the marina to make sure they knew we were coming. They were very friendly on the phone and told me to call when we got closer and they would tell me the slip assignment and assist with the lines. We followed the chart and made our way to them. The dock master did meet us and assist with the lines. This marina had short ‘quarter’ docks, so when we pull in bow first, we have to exit the boat via the bowsprit, as the dock ends before our midship gate. Frank has become pretty good at this. Once we were secured and settled, we needed to do some laundry. I went to the office for quarters, but he had to empty the laundry machines to give me the change. Now it was laundry time. The rain came and we did runs between the rain to load and unload the machines. We also had power since we were at a marina, so we could watch TV too. I chatted with a guy on the dock for a bit and he told me about a s good anchorage at a State Park- Kiptopeke. We would look into this as a possibility of our next stop.
Day 2- The weather was once again crappy, so we hung out on the boat all day, with walks for Franklin between rain. We looked into the Kiptopeke State Park and decided that will be our next stop when we leave tomorrow…