Escaping winter

We are tied up at the free dock at the north ferry landing in Portsmouth, Virginia (map).  The ferry that lands here would take us across the river to Town Point, where we spent a week back in May.  If we had another day or so to spare, we would do just that, and have dinner there.  As it is, we are still concerned about closure of the Great Bridge lock another ten miles south of here, and so we will shove off shortly and head to Top Rack Marina, another familiar stop, to take on 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel before trying to make this afternoon's window for lock opening.

We had a very nice cruise down from Deltaville yesterday.  There was just enough chop mid-morning for Angel The Queasy to lose her cookies, but nothing else was disturbed, and the new loops on the bilge discharges seem to be working as planned to keep the water from backflooding into the bilges when the boat porpoises.

We shoved off about 8am after final goodbyes and last-minute checks, and we were tied up here by 3:30.  We walked ten blocks or so to Mannino's Italian Bistro on High Street for a nice dinner, and we got to take in a little bit of Portsmouth in the process.  We'll definitely make another stop here some day when we have more time.

The Corps of Engineers has tentatively posted a window this afternoon from 12:30 to 6:30 to operate the Great Bridge lock.  We have two draw bridges before the lock which operate on fixed schedules, and between them is our fuel stop, where I expect it will take us at least three hours to bunker, assuming we don't have to wait in line first.

If all goes well we should be through the lock by mid-afternoon sometime, and we will tie up to the free wall between the lock and Great Bridge bridge, where we stopped on our way north six months ago.  Then we can breathe easy and have a much more leisurely cruise south.  I'll also be able to make time to catch up on some projects that have been on hold while we were in the yard, as well as some new ones that got added to the list.