Norfolk

Let's see where did we leave in the story. I know, I know, I haven't updated the blog in a while. So here's what's been happening. We finally got the weather window we'd all been waiting for to leave Deep Creek. We had one final lock to go through to completely exit the Dismal Swamp. The lock master at this lock can play actual music, recognizable music, on a conch shell (one of those big shells that you can "hear" the ocean in). He's got thousands of shells everywhere. He claims that 1 in 100 will produce a good tone. (Anthony and Luke you'll have to try and play a conch. Ask Stephen, it's not that easy to do!)

Out of the lock and the river has finally gotten a little wider and deeper. What a relief. We wanted to make it all the way to Deltaville that day, a very long jaunt. But to do so we needed to make every bridge opening, and ride up the bay with the tide. Our first bridge was the "The always open train bridge", anyone want to guess what happened? That's right it was closed, for the world's longest train. Ok, not the world's longest, but I'm sure it was close. So we had to do ....circles again. At least this time we had some room to do them in.

Once under the bridge, we knew we weren't making it to Deltaville. So we decided to stop in Portsmouth, across the harbour from Norfolk. Every guide you read warns you to stay away from all the naval boats in the harbour. Well they are everywhere and they're huge! It's one of the biggest Naval bases in the US. We were surprised to see a Canadian naval vessel. Because we've traveling with so many Canadian boats, we've been calling ourselves the Canadian Navy.

We stopped for the night at Tidewater Marina, very nice. We saw a couple of very big, very nice boats. Luckily we only had to stay there one night, it was the price of a hotel room! Josh was all excited because there was supposed to be a West Marine (a boating store) near by. Come to find out that most West Marines' are inland, away from the docks and hard to get to. What's up with that?!

Miss you all lots
Roxanne and Josh

P.S. You can make the pics bigger by clicking on them.