Norfolk VA (2014-04-10)

N36° 50.121', W76° 17.803'

Tonight finds us back in Norfolk VA, tied to the southern of the two Portsmouth free docks.  The AICW is now behind us, and the Chesapeake Bay is ahead of us.

Well actually, we still have 0.5 miles of the AICW left, but close enough.  We've put over 1000 miles under our keel since we started our northward journey to return home.  Another interesting fact is that we are now roughly half way home, with 1000 miles behind us, and another 1000 miles ahead of us.

We had a very peaceful night at the Dismal Swamp Visitor Center last night.  The morning dawned clear and sunny, and by the time we got underway at 0900, it was starting to warm up quite nicely.

Now these conditions are more to our liking

After a couple hours we were at the Deep Creek Lock, at the northern end of the Dismal Swamp Canal.  After a short delay we got through the bridge, entered the lock, and were soon past and on our way into Norfolk again.

This time we decided to try the southern free dock instead of the northern one where we had stayed on our southbound journey.  It's been a little rolly here, so the jury is still out as to which one is better.

Portsmouth free dock

Now it's time once again to wait for weather windows of good travel conditions on the Chesapeake.  It looks like we might have a good day on Saturday, but the next few days after that are very rough.  This seems to be our luck with the Chesapeake; get one good travel day and then two or three crappy ones, pretty much what we had on our southbound journey.  Such is life when living on a boat though, the weather rules your movements.  If we do head out on Saturday I have a couple good spots for us to stop to anchor out where we will be very sheltered and secure while we wait for our next good weather window.