October 14th- Deltaville, VA to Old Point Comfort/ Hampton, VA

We get a pretty good workout in the morning on travel days. When living on land my morning exercise routine consists of walking from the bed to the couch and grabbing a cup of coffee along the way. At sea we walk Ollie and prepare the boat to leave. Hoist the dinghy on deck. Lynne packs up the interior so things don’t fly around if Evergreen’s going to be rocking. Then it’s on to raising the anchor and chain with our manual windlass. Finally coffee!!

We had to get fuel before leaving Deltaville. I was hoping the big tri-maran on the fuel dock was going to leave but it wasn’t to be. The Admiral suggested that we might not fit in the remaining space on the fuel dock. We wedged Evergreen in and stopped a few feet short of the tri-maran’s bow.

Happy about getting on the dock without mayhem.

We started the day with a decent north wind. There were some sloppy waves due to the bay current but it was fun to be under full sail for a while. A couple hours later the wind died and we were left with the sloppy sea. We motored our way down the bay and up Hampton Roads inlet. We anchored near the Phoebus Channel and Old Point Comfort. This is part of Hampton VA. We’ve also anchored up the Hampton River in the past but this was a better option as it was late in the day and we were bailing out in the morning. The anchorage is between a highway and the point so it’s more functional than aesthetic.

Evergreen anchored off Old Point Comfort.

October 15th- Hampton, VA to The Great Dismal Swamp/ Deep Creek lock, VA

Evergreen crossed Hampton Roads into Norfolk. We heard something about a submarine on the VHF radio but never saw it. We avoided the various war ships and commercial traffic. The whole area seemed much busier last trip. Maybe there is just less commercial traffic on Saturday.

Some scenes from Norfolk and Portsmouth.

Gilmerton bridge. First drawbridge of the trip not counting the Padanaram Bridge (Our home port).

Shortly after the bridge we made the hard starboard turn up Deep Creek to the Dismal Swamp. We love the Dismal Swamp. It’s not dismal!

We locked through the Deep Creek Lock and tied up to Elizabeth’s Dock for the night. Robert, the old lock keeper passed away but the new guy was great. I was going to ask about the duckweed situation but I could see it was already going to be a problem. Duckweed is a plant but it looks algae and clogs the engine raw water intake filters. I need to keep an eye on the filter.

Ollie is very happy about the dock as it’s adjacent to a park.

Deep Creek Lock

Up.

Evergreen at Elizabeth’s Dock.