Sunday, June 7, 2020

Hampton at Bluewater Marina - at a dock

It was do it yourself at the locks today - no help from the lockmaster
We were in no special hurry so we left on time to make the 9:00 am opening of Great Bridge and the associated lock. In the age of the coronavirus, there's no help in securing lines to the cleats alongside the bulkhead. Normally, you would hand up the fore and aft lines to be picked up by the lockmaster and you're good to go. Not anymore. Now you're told to secure the midcleat first and then the fore and aft lines. That technique secures the boat to the bulkhead and then you can fish for the fore and aft cleats on land. It's a little awkward but it works. The lockmaster stood by and watched all of us.

The many boats in for upgrades were impressive in Norfolk
The rest of the trip north to Hampton was uneventful. All the railroad bridges were up and the Gilmerton bridge opened on request. We arrived at Bluewater Marina around 1:00 and found our slip without a problem. It's a nice marina and appears very secure. Normally we would dock at Downtown Hampton Public Piers but there is no security there other than the occasional policeman walking by so we thought it was better to be at Bluewater Marina, at least this time around. 

We were looking for the name of the boat but all we could see was, "No Smoking", a strange name for such a large ship
On Monday, it's north to Dozier's Marina at Stingray Point. We will haul Fleetwing on Wednesday and we need time to get the boat ready for the summer which we will do on Tuesday. Time to head home.
This bridge looks to be too slender and too high, but pretty

6 comments:

Changes in L'Attitudes said...

Good job keeping focused as you near the end of the trip.

wjs said...

Bob, wouldn't your AIS receiver have given you the name of NO SMOKING?

I've been watching Key West. Duval got a major repaving, and Green Parrot just reopened yesterday. I saw two customers at the bar. Good signs, anyway.

Bill

Unknown said...

so enjoy following this trip w/ you'all

John said...

Bob, I will be following you north and would like to download your track for New River Inlet MM244 into aquamaps using an android tablet. I think I can download T_5_31_20 but that is much larger. In the past, I would go to bobicw.blogspot.com which has an extremely handy list of hazards by MM and click on the track. Now the link is to a video which isn't helping me with my specific problem. Please advise.
And thanks for all that you do.
John Tyrell

Bob423 said...

John,,

http://bobicw.blogspot.com/p/2020-going-north-descriptions.html

Is a link to the track descriptions.

John said...

I understand the description. My question is how to load a portion of a track.So not the entire 5_31 track but just the new river inlet section.