SAILS 1990 45 Florida Bay Coaster
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SAILS....Cruising Blogs
These are all the Blogs posted on Sunday, 27 April, 2014.
FL to CT Day 22
Coinjock, NC to Portsmouth, VA
Departed this morning at later than normal.. had a little computer work come in that needed to be done before we left so departure time was 0820.

Today is a terrible day for bridges... the opening schedules just won't allow us to make them... pass through one bridge and there is no way we can make the next bridges opening time at our 7 knot pace.

First Bridge was the North Landing Bridge... takes about 3-4 hours to get there from Coinjock. It opens on the hour and half hour... but the bridge after it the Centerville Turnpike Bridge only opens on the hour... they are just over 5 miles apart... we have to run at over 8 knots to make it within the half hour... so we have to go through the North Landing on the hour opening and then take an hour to the 5 miles to the Centerville Bridge... that's at about 4 knots.

Anyway, had it all planned out and then as we get closer I start hearing the Centerville Bridge opening at times other than top of the hour... come to find out that their restricted opening schedule is only during the week days... weekends are on demand... YEAH! So, once we made the North Landing we continued on at normal speed and the Centerville bridge opened on demand as we approached... very nice!

After this we still had the Great Bridge Bridge that does only open on the hour and we were totally out of whack timing wise for this so we continued on and pulled into the dock just before the bridge and tied up for 40 minutes to wait on the 1400 opening. Susan Took Beecha for a walk and it was a nice break in the middle of the day.

After the bridge we immediately go into the Great Bridge Lock... there was only us and one small 28 foot boat locking through... drop 1.5 feet and we were out heading to the next bridge that we also only opens on the hour... Steel Bridge... it's less than 3 miles away... so we creep at a snails pace taking 45 minutes to travel 2.4 miles... just above idle... and still have to wait at the steel bridge for 10 minutes. There is a new high rise bridge under construction so this soon will be a thing of the past.

From here it free sailing... the Gilmerton Bridge is new and now has a 35 foot clearance and we do not need to open it... next stop Portsmouth. Well, almost... last 2 miles from our destination for the night is the Belt Line R&R Bridge... rarely closed... but today we watched it close in front of us as we approached... waited only 5-10 minutes...watched the train cross the bridge and we back underway.

We arrived the free dock a the end of High St, Portsmouth, VA... a popular place for cruisers to stop before heading up the Chesapeake Bay. There were three other trawlers and two sailboats already moored here. We pulled into our normal spot along the high wall... most boats do not like it due to it's height above the water... but it is perfect for our side gate... same level... :)

We were secure at 1600 at approximate locations N36°50.130', W076°17.777'. We traveled today for 7.7 hours covering 41.8 nautical miles averaging 5.4 knots.
Posted at 3:48 PM by:Jay
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