-Jon

            After breakfast and a quick trip to the town dock for a pump out we pointed Eleanor’s bow out through the Belhaven breakwater and back to the ICW, our destination for the day – Norfolk.

            The benign weather forecast was worsening by the hour with strong near-gale force winds now predicted for Thursday. We needed to get 150 miles north to Norfolk by Tuesday so we had Wednesday to run up the Chesapeake. If we got delayed the window was going to shut, leaving us stuck 150 miles from home for at least three days. 

            We had several challenges ahead as we cruised up the Pongo River towards the 22-mile-long Alligator-Pungo Canal. The first challenge was going to be the swing bridge on the Alligator River. Fully exposed to the weather at the junction of the river with the broad Albemarle Sound meant that this was one of the only bridges that wouldn’t open in strong winds. As we rounded the corner at the south end of the Alligator and started heading straight into the wind and waves I could tell we’d be okay but not by much. Gusts were hitting the mid-twenties but the limit is 34 knots. We motored on up and the bridge tender kindly opened for us.

            Once through the swing bridge, the base populated by a huge flock of pelicans who decided it was too windy to fly, we made our way into Albemarle Sound. This is possibly the most weather restricted stretch of the Intracoastal. Combining distant low shorelines unable to block the wind with a very shallow depth, any storm stirred up a steep wave pattern that made it unpleasant, even dangerous, to cross. We worked our way across, taking solid waves over the bow. Eleanor has a comfortable motion in a seaway, sashaying her way through the swells, not fighting the waves with an abrupt pounding like many powerboats. It was still the roughest section of the trip. 

Back in the ditch of the ICW we now had to calculate time and distance to get through a series of draw bridges and a lock to our destination for the day at the north end of Norfolk harbor. The densely populated area south of Norfolk and Virginia Beach has a number of bridges that cross the ICW. For the last three decades, all new ones are built to a fixed height of 65 feet, which meant they would be no factor for us, or the commuters driving across. Unfortunately, there are still draw bridges and to facilitate road traffic, they limit openings to either once an hour or every 30 minutes depending on their posted rules. It became imperative that we hit the first bridge with an opening on the hour at exactly 2:00 pm. That gave us 30 minutes to go five miles to the next bridge opening at 2:30, followed by a 3.5 mile run to the Great Bridge lock at 3:00 pm. If we made the first bridge on time, we could make it to the Norfolk Yacht & Country Club by 4:00, before the Dockmaster left for the day. If we missed the first bridge opening by even five minutes, we would be set back an entire hour. We cruised slowly through the world-famous town of Coinjock and kicked Eleanor back up on plane to get to our bridge opening.

            Everything went as planned and we made it through all the drawbridges and into the Great Bridge Lock at 3:00. The lock is unusual in that unlike most locks, it isn’t to move vessels up or down in water level. The purpose is to keep the salt water from the Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay, and the Elizabeth River from Norfolk from contaminating the fresh water Currituck Sound of North Carolina. Plants and animals prefer either fresh or salt water environments so this “guard lock” is needed to impede water flow through the man-made canal connecting the two different ecological systems.

 Locking through took 20 minutes,  then with speed zones through the southern reaches of Norfolk Harbor slowing the pace, we finally arrived at our destination at 4:45. The dockmaster had left for the day, but as it turned out, it didn’t matter. This early in the season we were the sole transient, so we had our pick of berths for the night. After a little exercise in the fitness center, we had a pleasant dinner in the yacht club overlooking the container ship terminal in the harbor.