June 13

A sign along the way...



Evening at Ocean City docks...



Ocean City, Md. to Coinjock N.C. 9:00 Am, 603 hours.
For the first time on our trip we were able to lose the two coats and jeans that we donned to stay warm in favor of shorts and tees.
Quite unexpectedly, Bob and I emerged from the cabin with the same color tees and shorts. Captain Gina nodded approvingly.
Heading out to our first leg, took us out the breakwater to sea in a balmy 77 degrees or so. We headed down the coast 70 or so nautical miles in beautiful calm cruising waters to Chesapeake Bay inlet. However no trip would be complete without our daily deluge and so it happened just as we made our turn toward the inlet. We could see the storm on the radar and we tried to go around it but nothing doing. The storm chased us down and it rained so hard we couldn't see 40 feet in front of the boat. About ten minutes later, we broke free and headed toward the Chesapeake Bay bridge. This is a rather interesting bridge in that it travels along the top of the water and ducks down into a tunnel in two places so that ships cruising in and out of Norfolk don't have to deal with height restrictions. You can barely make out the bridge since it is only a few feet off the water as shown in this pic.
Anyway, we cruised thru this very interesting port marveling at the plethora of Naval and commercial ships. This is one very very busy port.





In a little while, we came upon the first bridge of the several that we'll have to negotiate to continue our trip southward. Had the bridge attendant opened this bridge 5 minutes earlier we would have made the next bridge which opens only on the hour. This bridge.. So we arrived at the next bridge 5 minutes late, they had just closed the bridge, and now we're left with several more bridge openings we'll have to make in order to reach Coinjock 70 or so miles away. The time is 4:05 PM and we have to wait till 5 PM for the opening and then make the last bridge in this leg before the last opening at 7 PM. So what's a crew to do... why polish off a bottle of wine while we're waiting. ;) At five PM on the dot, the bridge opens and we continue our journey down the twisty narrow byways to the only lock we'll encounter in this trip. Much to our chagrin we see a tugboat just entering the locks from the other direction with several work barges attached. For what seemed like an anxious eternity we waited for the tug to safely negotiate the locks. We cleared the locks and once again headed south for Coinjock.
Fortunately, we didn't encounter much boat traffic so we were able to make good speed and even made the 6:30 opening at the last bridge before Coinjock. Arriving in Coinjock around 7 PM we fueled up and then just had to open another bottle of wine before heading up to the restaurant for our 32 ounce prime ribs. We had steamed shrimp, awesome, and rumrunners w/o grenandine, awesome and our magnificent slabs of beef. Yes we ate the whole damn thing ! Well, the restaurant was trying to close but Bob convinced them to get us a "roady" rumrunner to take back to the boat. Well, I don't know if she was the owner who made that one but she sure did pour it like she hated the owner. They handed us styrofoam cups, turned their backs and we made the drinks dissappear. A wonderful nitecap to a great day. BTW for anyone thinking Coinjock has the best deal on fuel prices make sure you figure in the 6.75 N.C. fuel tax which is counted seperately. Ocean City Fishermans Marina beat their price by 11 cents a gallon.