We finally broke free of Norfolk this morning and turned right, down to mile zero of the ICW. The first twelve miles of the ICW contains about an half dozen draw bridges and a lock at Great Bridge at mile 12. The bridges either open on demand via request by VHF channel 13 or they open on the half hour except during rush hour. As we approached our first drawbridge we caught up with Ray and Betty White on their Caliber 40 "Casa Blanca" as well as about half a dozen other boats that were stacked up waiting for a train to pass over the bridge.

Ray & Betty have done this trip several times before so it is nice to tag along with them at least as far as Hilton head. We ran into two other Irwins on route this AM as well. The bridges all opened on time and our locking through at Great Bridge was uneventful but quite different than our prior summertime passages in that every spot along both sides of the lock was filled with boats heading south.

After great bridge it was just a long day of motoring down the I95 of boating till we arrived at milepost 50 and the hamlet of Coinjock. We filled our diesel at Midway Marina and tied up behind Casa Blanca at about 4:30. I fixed some steering cables which were acting up, washed up and it was time for a nice seafood dinner. It's only 8:30 PM but I'm ready for bed as it has been a long day on the water. Tomorrow we'll cross the Albermarle sound and the predictions are for warm weather and light winds...hope so! //GB

Today I was surrounded by ghosts. This morning we began our 900 mile journey down the Intracoastal Waterway beginning in Norfolk. Immediately we sailed past the barracks built in World War II. There they stood-dozens of them in the sunlight and I could almost hear the soldiers and sailors preparing to leave for Europe and the pacific-nothing had been disturbed. We then sailed past the mothball fleet-those ships from the war that are now rusting or being dismantled-so majestic in their day and now juxtaposed to a state of the art aircraft carrier that too will someday be in its own bygone day. The ghosts were there all right-I tried to imagine where and what these ships had been assigned to. Waiting for one of the bridges to open-we saw 6 PT boats in tall grasses-almost like gravestones-or monuments. Especially these days-we are all feeling what the greatest generation felt-this is a good thing. Continuing down the waterway George and I kept remembering places the kids liked on all of our sailing vacations down this way when they were little-more ghosts-could see them on the deck or swimming or steering the boat. It was a good day-calm and calming...//JB