Title kinda says it all doesn’t it? Our feelings about this are torn; on the one hand we will miss the ease of being at a dock and all our wonderful, friendly neighbors. On the other hand, the moola saved will come in handy. Two events have or will transpire that led us to make this decision. For one, we’ve got to spend some serious time on the hard, probably in RI, where MC will perform the work needed to fix our hull blisters. Looking at a good month, we figure. Two, our son will be working in VT this summer, starting right after school ends. Because of this, we opted to get the boat repairs taken care of sooner rather than later so they won’t delay our fall departure.

Brewer Deep River was great (hey, some lucky boat owner is going to have a primo spot) and all changes were made very quickly. I can hardly wait to not have cable, to run the genset for cooling A/C, to jug our water or visit the fuel dock more often, and best of all dinghy back and forth every time we need to get to shore. All those shopping and storage trips, sigh. If we don’t come in to see you- dinghy out to see us!

As we prepare for our usually eventful, but hopefully boring this time, offshore from Norfolk to NJ/NY I wonder about the debris waiting for us thanks to Superstorm Sandy. Perhaps we won’t get close enough to shore to see much; that would be fine. The photos and videos we’ve seen since early Nov are a sad testimony to Mother Nature’s incredible strength and willfulness.

Warning- lazy and running out of time to get this done in a timely manner- this will be mostly photos.  Great Bridge has a Civil War battle history and is the place where the course of the southern branch of the Elizabeth River was altered and a lock placed.  The river south of the Great Bridge Lock has virtually no current nor tide. The skimpy 1/2 mile stretch between the bridge and lock is an ideal place for a dock and activities such as rowing, duck races, Opti races and the like. The bridge only opens hourly while the lock opens on the hour for north bound traffic and on the half hour for south bound.

Tug and barge enter lock followed by sailboat

Local sign shop displays mural of Battle at Great Bridge.

Great Bridge Park sits by the waterway

Maybe if you zoom in you can read the words

Working on the canals- like father like son

After the free dock we traveled all of six miles, through the lock and one more bridge, to Top Rack Marina which sits a stone’s throw from the Dominion Blvd Steel (bascule) bridge. Their gas and diesel prices are the lowest around and we figured if we couldn’t save by sailing we’d save on cost. They also offer a dock and dine deal. If you eat at the Amber Lantern restaurant your dockage is free. Not much to look at and no laundry, but wonderful bathrooms and shower thanks to being only three years old, it was an easy stop before we needed to move on to Cape Charles to stage for our offshore.

As the name implies, boats are rack stored inside.

Our black lines are so long- this makes them look lovely.