Goodbye Ditch; Now we're up the Creek

Hey guys'

First, Linda and I would like to say thank you to everyone who sent us congratulations. We will certainly have to celebrate when we return. Linda also wanted to thank Den for the Coinjock prime rib recommendation. It was fantastic.

We left Coinjock early this morning and left North Carolina behind shortly there after. We barely squeezed by a barge going the other way, but our timing was good for all bridge openings and we entered the Great Bridge Lock at noon. We believe Divine intervention was again to be given credit for allowing us to be the last boat to pass through the N&S RR bridge before it had to remain closed for hours to perform some unscheduled maintenance. We hit Mile 0 of the ICW at 3 PM. Norfolk by water is not what we imagined. There are so many Navy and commercial yards. Armed patrol boats encouraged us to maintain our distance frorm any of the military ships, but Linda still managed to snap a few pictures. Anyone recognize the Simon Lake? After the ICW we went another 4 1/2 hours before arriving at our marina in Little Creek. We had to take a long way around to avoid a shoal and although the wind was only 10-15 the confused sea state made for a bouncy ride. We will stay here until Phil's arrival, after which we will make a decision on departure for our open sea leg of the trip.