Wide open spaces.

Wednesday 10-8-08
We left our slip about 08:00AM so we could be in place at the Jordan lift bridge for the first scheduled opening at 08:30. This would be the first of 7 bridges plus one lock that we would have to work through in the first 20 miles going south from Norfolk. These bridges as well as the lock, have scheduled opening times, usually on the hour or the half hour and there are certain time periods such as the AM car commute time - 6:30-8:30 when they don’t open for boats at all. They will however, open for commercial water traffic such as tugs, at any time. If a boater is lucky enough to get behind a tug & barge, he can just slide on through the bridges. We didn’t have that kind of luck. We cleared the last of the bridges at 11:30 and from that point had clear sailing onto our destination for the day – Coinjock, NC - 50 miles from Portsmouth.
Conditions were nice all day and we arrived at Midway Marina at 3 PM where “Ronnie” the dock master, helped with our lines. Midway was recommended to us by several cruising friends and we were happy we took their advice. Prices are reasonable and the operation has a friendly “good old boy” feel about it but managed in a professional manner. We decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the restaurant which was only 40 feet from our boat and featured fresh seafood. The owner of the whole operation, Bob, was in the dining room and came by to chat with us while we were having drinks. He had previously had a business on the outer banks and gave that up to move to Coinjock. His wife suggested they try a marina and that seems to be working out. Regarding fresh seafood, as our dinner was being delivered to the table a guy came through the dining room with a 5 gallon bucket and he was showing some of the other patrons the flounders that were flopping around in it. The bucket went directly into the kitchen. Our dinner was great and plentiful – we both brought leftovers back to the boat and will have the crab cakes for dinner tomorrow.
About an hour after we arrived at Midway another trawler tied up behind us and we learned they were MTOA (our trawler owners’ group) members and had spent the summer at a marina in Baltimore with another couple who are also friends of ours. The new couple, Jim and Jo Ann Wickham, live aboard their trawler named “LongHaul”. They are from Michigan and Jim used to be an independent trucker. Another set of new friends to add to our collection.
In front of us at the dock was a really nice sailboat and Polly and I stopped by to say hello when we saw the couple sitting in their cockpit. We still identify a lot with sailors even though it has now been 6 years since we sold PURPOSE. The sailing couple, live in NC, and were cruising home from the Norfolk area when they had a problem with the depth sounder. They talked to the manufacturer who suggested they send it to them, so they returned to Coinjock, the nearest place to send a package from, and they have been waiting there for a few days. They told us an interesting story connected with the failure of the depth instrument:
They were positioning the boat in shallow water for anchoring, when the display went blank and soon after, they felt the boats keel contact the bottom. The wife was on the bow handling the anchor when the boat lurched and the anchor banged around and made a lot of noise. I must mention now that they had their pet parrot below in the cabin, and free of his cage. The lurch and sudden banging startled the bird and he went berserk and flew right through the screen that covered the companionway opening. Well, bye, bye birdie, sort of. As the sailor man continued the story, my imagination got way ahead of him – I was anticipating that the bird had been found somewhere and maybe told the finder who his owner was, and even the cell phone number and had asked him to call and let them know he was sorry and wanted to come back home. The actual story was nearly as good. The bird landed at a home and the finder saw he had a leg band. The band info led him to the breeder and her records showed the owners name. They checked out the name in a search site and got a phone number for the owner’s mother. Mom called her son, the bird’s owner, and arrangements are being made to get the parrot back aboard. Maybe UPS will bring him with the repaired depth sounder.
Tomorrow we will head across Albemarle Sound since the WX forecast sounds pretty good. This body of water can be very rough with high winds out of the east or the west.