We made it to Norfolk. It was a long motorboat ride. There is no way to sail in this section of the ICW. We left Coinjock and continued up to Chesapeake VA and spent the night tied to the wall at the Great Bridge. I will mention that we only caught one bridge opening and had to wait from 20 minutes to 45 minutes for the scheduled openings at the others. One of the hassles of the ICW. We have stayed here previously, it is a free overnight stay. No, this time I did not go up to the Dairy Queen. In the morning we called several of the marinas in the area to see if any of them could get a chance to look at our 9.9 outboard. Everyone is booked for several weeks. We gave up and caught the 12:00 opening for the lock and continued up to Norfolk. We were waiting for a call back from one of the marinas and called them when we got outside their entrance. No luck, booked for weeks. They suggested Ocean Marine Yacht Center. We called them and they said they might be able to get at it on Friday. This was Thursday so we jumped at it. We pulled in and dropped the engine and gas tank off and moved up to Hospital Point to anchor for the night.
We had a relatively quiet night at anchor in downtown Norfolk with the city lights reflecting off the water. In the morning, boat, ship and barge traffic picked up but what can you ask for in a free anchorage. We hung out on the boat for the day and late afternoon called to check on the motor. They hadn't been able to get at it but would have someone working on it on Saturday.
While sleeping in on Saturday we were waken by music coming from shore. They were evidently having some sort of race and the band was firing them up. The rest of the morning we got to listen to the music and the PA system along with watching the boats, ships and barges go by. Just after 11:00 we got a call that the outboard was running. I had let it sit too long and the gas gummed up the carburetor again. We pulled the anchor and headed back to pick it up and get some diesel fuel. By 1:00 we were off. We had decided to go across the river to Hampton for the rest of the weekend. As we were approaching the Navy base one of the carriers was leaving its dock and heading out to sea. At one point we had the Navy Police boat come to check us out after I made a fast 90 degree turn straight at the ships to avoid being hit by another boats wake broadside and rolling uncontrollably. It must have looked like a move a terrorist would make but at least we didn't have stuff flying all over like it did on a previous wake. Some people don't care what happens to others just so they can go where they are going as fast as they can. It wouldn't kill them to give some of us a slow pass to minimize their wake.
Just before we got there the sky tuned dark and we could see the rain coming. It is never a good idea to enter a strange harbor in adverse conditions so we turned around and motored around until it let up. The good news is that we got everything closed up and the boat got a nice fresh water wash. The bad news is that we got a nice fresh water shower but we can dry out. We eventually made it into the harbor but were not able to get a spot to anchor. We are trying to save money for our stay in New York so we are avoiding marinas. We chose an alternate anchorage and headed back out of the harbor and up river a short ways. Anchor down by 5:00, the boat is clean and we are dry, things could be worse. Now that the outboard is running again we can take the dinghy into town on Sunday.
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