The Intra Coastal Waterway, day 1

We kicked off the dock at Hampton about 10 am Sunday Nov 11, after having a terrific pasta dinner with Stuart and Elaine (sorry about the spilled wine...). They will be heading out around Wed (Nov 14), so we will be a few days ahead of them. Hopefully, they will catch up with us, it would be fun to have a travelling companion!

I was kind of jittery about setting out - you get complacent when you are in one spot for too long I find, and we had been in Hampton for about 2 weeks. Anyway, we planned a fairly easy day for our first day, as there are quite a few bridges and a lock to get through, which can make the passage slow. We thought we would stop at Great Bridge, where it is possible to tie up to docks between the bridge and the lock. However, that was not to be....there was no room for us at either of the docks...damn! It would not be a big deal, except that there really no good anchorages between Great Bridge and Pungo Ferry, a distance of about 18 miles. We don't go fast, thats about 3 hours, and it gets dark about 5 pm nowadays. So there we were, all by ourselves, sun going down, night coming on, weather COLD and every spot we tried to anchor - we went aground. The ICW isn't called "the ditch" for nothing! We were navigating with a powerful flashlight on the markers (the ICW is well marked that way!) and keeping close track on the chart. We finally decided to try hailing a marina (Pungo Ferry Marina) but no one answered! We were approaching a bridge when we saw people at the marina and were about to hail, when we were hailed on the vhf. A boat was leaving the dock, and we could come in and take their spot! Thank God! We managed to get on the dock (our stern stuck out, but we didn't care!) and the folks that helped us (and hailed us) weren't from the marina at all, but other boaters who had been in the same prediciment as us! We all agreed that the charts lie as far as good anchorages and depths goes, and then we retreated to the warmth of the cabin for a much deserved dinner! I was never so happy to be in a marina! We vowed that this would not happen to us again, as my nerves were shot by the time we got in!