We had dinner last night at the Coinjock Marina Restaurant... Susan had the infamous Prime Rib... We have enjoyed the leftovers from it this morning with breakfast.

We departed at 0745 which was planned time to make the first bridge at it's 1130 opening... There are three bridges/locks to deal with today and they all have restricted opening schedules... First the North Landing Bridge and the Centerville Turnpike Bridge open on the half hour and hour. Then the Great Bridge Bridge and Great Bridge Lock. The bridge only opens on the hour and the lock is sync'd with the bridge opening. The issue is the distance between the North Landing and Centerville Bridges... 5 nautical miles... we cannot cover that distance within 30 minutes so we have to go real slow to cover the 5 miles in 60 minutes... It's about 2.5 miles to reach the Great Bridge Bridge... 30 minutes... so to make an on the hour opening at Great Bridge we have to go through the North Landing on Bridge on the half hour... so out schedule was...

North Landing - 1130
Centerville - 1230
Great Bridge - 1300

We made it through the North Landing at 1130 as planned... a little tight because they were only opening half the span... slowed to a snails pace and made the Centerville Bridge at 1230 as planned. Arrived at the Great Bridge Bridge at just before 1300. Plan was working well. There were a lot of boats waiting at Great Bridge to move north... I counted 6 in all... a small barge and tug, sailboat, small power boat, an 86' Nordhaven and three 40'ish foot trawlers plus SAILS.

After all of us passing through the bridge... I saw that the lock already had one LARGE tug and barge sitting in it. There was enough room for the Nordhaven behind the barge. The lock hailed the small tug and barge and informed him that there was not going to be enough room for him this lockage but everyone else would fit.... COOL!

There was maybe 30 feet between the barge and the west wall of the lock... all the boats had to slide alongside the barge and tie to the port side of the lock... the first boat after the Nordhaven was a sundeck trawler... he started to slide past the barge and stopped... we heard him talking with the lock on the VHF... he was not comfortable moving alongside the barge and tied to the wall before the barge... was not looking good for everyone to fit at this point. A few minutes passed as we watched boats moving around in the lock ahead of us. Soon the lock hailed us and a Krogen ahead of us... there was not going to be enough room for us... we would have to wait for the next lockage... We turned around and went back to the bulkhead just after the bridge and tied to wall to wait. This meant we would not be going anywhere for another hour... the 1400 bridge opening and lockage... BUMMER!

1345 lock hailed us and gave us the ok to enter the lock... we moved into the lock with the Krogen and the small tug and barge. 1400 the Great Bridge Bridge opened and 4 other boats came through and proceeded to the lock. Finally at 1435 we exited the lock and were underway... nothing to stop us now before we reached our destination for the night in Portsmouth.

I was wrong! Just as we approached the Gilmerton Bridge and the Norfolk Southern #7 Railroad Bridge... the VHF rings out that the railroad bridge is closing... NO!!!! It closes real real slowly... I thought we would make it... Susan did not... we waited! It took forever for a train to ever show up and when it did it was moving real slowly and it seemed like it was miles long... We waited 45 minutes... :(

At 1615 we reached our destination for the night in Portsmouth... The free docks at the end of High Street. Pulled into join two sailboats on the north dock and we tied to the east dock. Later another sailboat pulled in and tied to the west dock. Our location for the night N36°50.130', W076°17.774'. We traveled today for 8 hours and 30 minutes covering 42.5 nautical miles averaging 5.0 knots.