Pungo Ferry to Norfolk

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. - Anonymous

We left Broad Creek on the North River two days ago and made the slog straight into North winds up the Currituck Sound. The passage was fairly smooth because the winds were light, and we were looking forward to a peaceful night in Pungo Ferry to prepare for the 5 draw bridges and one lock on the way through Norfolk. Unfortunately, there are no good anchorages in Pungo Ferry, and the Marina is now closed. I think there were once anchorages in Pungo, because the NOAA charts show several deep areas and Skipper Bob's Guide mentions a couple of places. We tried them all. Same old story that we've seen up and down the waterway. Places that are charted at 10 or 16 feet of water have less than 6 and we end up hard reversing to get ourselves back out. We must have tried 4 or 5 places around there that looked good on the charts but had no water, and finally ended up hanging our butt out slightly in the channel for the night. We really do need the Pavlidis Guide to the ICW.

We got up the next morning for an early start, expecting a long day because of the lock and many drawbridges that are all on strict schedules, and moved through the first few smoothly. Passing the Centerville Marina just north of the Centerville Bridge we had a guy come out of the Marina office and start yelling at us "Slow down, this is a no wake zone!!" I couldn't stop laughing. We couldn't make a wake if we tried, and we were about to be overtaken by a 100' megayacht. Anyway, after giving him the hand signal to let him know "You're number one!" we followed the flotilla of huge powerboats into the Great Bridge Lock pictured above. A short drop down, only a foot and half, and we were back underway.

We were pushing the old engine hard, because the distance between the bridges and the timing of their openings was just on the edge of what we could make. We had a pretty funny thing happen at the Steel Bridge, where all the big power yachts had zoomed ahead of us and were in line waiting for the opening. I had just taken this picture of the flotilla all lined up in formation to go through the bridge, with us pulling up the rear when the bridge tender called us on the Vhf, "North bound sailboat you need to move up closer to the bridge if you want to make the opening."

"Ok" I replied, "I was just waiting my turn, I didn't want to be greedy."

"They're the ones that are greedy!" She said back to us over the radio. "You bring it on up here to the front of the line!" So Felix charged on up and took her place in the lead of the pack, much to the chagrin of the megayacht owners who gave some disgruntled "huumphs" over the radio!!!

With the sky darkening and rain drizzling on us, we made it past the Navy Piers where I was all set to take some pictures of the submarines, but there were none in port. We carried on to Old Point Comfort and anchored in the basin where Moria had anchored her first night out of Deltaville 14 years ago. We are now only 55 miles from our destination of Jackson Creek in Deltaville, and plan to sail up there tomorrow and arrive in the evening.

One last picture because we're such fans of the birds of prey. We saw this national symbol proudly sitting along the canal just north of Pungo Ferry yesterday. Yes, the 12x optical zoom is a nice camera feature!