June 5 2021
The anchorage in the Alligator River turned out to be a nightmare. I have found a pest to rival the infamous Miller Moth. The next morning after anchoring in Alligator River I found the boat covered in little green mosquitos. However, they weren’t mosquitos and didn’t bite. I believe they are non-biting midges. The entire area that was leeward of the wind was covered in these small green flies. Since it was raining when I pulled anchor I hoped they would wash off or be carried away on the wind. No such luck. I had a small run up to the Coinjock Marina and the dang things were still with me. I made use of the marina water supply to try to wash them off, in the rain of course. I made a dent but still had quite a few hitchhikers.
I treated myself to a prime rib dinner at the restaurant connected to the marina. The Coinjock Marina is really on long dock along the ICW. They are famous for their prime rib dinner and it was very good. I even had a slice of their vanilla mouse cheese cake just to make sure I didn’t lose my strength for the next day.
Friday was going to be quite a challenge once I left Coinjock. I had to go through my first lock called Great Bridge Lock. You might deduce there is a Great Bridge as well and you would be correct. You must go through the Great Bridge to enter the Great Bridge Lock. Unfortunately, the Great Bridge only opens on the hour. Greaaate. Get there there at the wrong time and your are fighting to keep your boat in one place for an hour. Life is never that simple, I needed to time three other bridge openings that only opened on the hour and half hour. Being the computer nerd, I got it all planed out on my chart/plotter and had it all figured out. Or so I thought. I woke up nice and early and wanted to leave at slack tide. I was going through my checklists when I heard a rumble of a big engine. Much to my surprise a tug pushing a barge was going by. I really, really didn’t want to try a pass that on the narrow ICW. I checked his AIS data and he was going about 6.4kn. I had planned out my bridge timings at 6kn and I wasn’t leaving for a half hour. With a sigh of relief I thought I was in good shape. Life is never that easy. About an hour after I left I came around a bend and there he was. He had stopped for some reason and appeared to just be sitting across the channel. As I got closer I could see he had straightened out and was under way. Yay! I followed him for a couple of hours then had to pass him because he needed to make some maneuvers to get through a bridge. Since I was going about his speed it wasn’t a problem with him behind me.
Careful planning takes the first hit. The coast guard announces maintenance work of a railroad bridge with closures of an hour. I knew I had to go under two railroad bridges that are normally open. This didn’t sound good. Careful planning hit two came when one of the bridges I need to make had just closed about a half mile in front of me. So close and yet so far. Luckily, there was no current or wind to speak of so waiting a half hour for the bridge wasn’t bad. That threw off my timing for Great Bridge so me, a few boats behind me and the tug/barge who had caught up were all crawling along to kill time. Since I was first at the previous bridge, I led all of the little ducklings and whale to the Great Bridge. Once again, I had a little luck and there were no currents or wind. I took the opportunity during the 45 minute wait to get my fenders and lines ready for the lock and listen to the ensuing confusion on the radio. The tug behind me was planning to go through the lock which meant I needed to pull over and let him go into the lock first. A little later, the tug captain said he wasn’t going through the lock because the railroad bridge, mentioned previously, was closed and might open in an hour. Well the lock attendant got confused so there was all kind of confusing back and forth as to whether I need to proceed or pull over. This did not help my nerves being already on end about going through a lock single handed. By the way, the Great Bridge wasn’t all that great.
Locking through turned out to be a breeze. I had one line that I managed and used my thrusters to keep the bout against the wall. All of that worrying for nothing. Sure enough, about a half hour after leaving the lock I came up on a row of boats sitting in front of me waiting for the railroad bridge to open. There was a slight current but another 45 minute wait went by fairly smoothly. Finally after getting through the railroad bridge and the road bridge opening behind it, I cruised into Norfolk. Wow, what a site with these huge naval ships either under construction or being refit. I saw two aircraft carriers alone.
It was a tight squeeze to get into the Waterside Marina and into my slip. Not having been in a real marina, excluding Coinjock and “Jacksonville Free City Dock” here, for several weeks made anything less than 150 feet wide seem small. With great relief I was able to shut everything down, including myself, and looked forward to playing tourist!
