On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 20:08:01 -0500, Boating All Out
wrote:

In article ,
says...

We left Atlantic City, New Jersey yesterday morning with the plan of
passing through the Cape May Canal and continuing on up to the north
end of Delaware Bay, ideally positioned for transiting south through
Chesapeake Bay over the next week or so. Yesterday was a beautiful
day on the ocean however with lots of sun, light northerly breezes,
and almost perfectly calm seas. By the time we were approaching Cape
May I did some quick calculations and determined that if we kept on
going south in the ocean, we could be in Norfolk, Virginia by 3:00AM,
bypass Chesapeake Bay entirely, save 100 miles or so, and still get a
half decent night's sleep. We ended up doing exactly that, slept
until almost noon today and still managed to get south of Norfollk to
the eponymous Great Bridge Bridge where we are now tied up at the town
dock.

https://www.google.com/search?q=grea...ks-Department%
252FDivisions%252Fbridges%252Fbridges-greatbridge.htm%3B300%3B225

Tomorrow we'll be tied up at Coinjock Marina in North Carolina
enjoying a big plate of their famous prime ribs.

http://tinyurl.com/waynebspottrack

Cool. What it like transiting that river you're on? Good scenery?

===

It's interesting. Right now we are on a part of the Intra Coastal
Waterway (ICW) called the Virginia Cut. It leads south from the city
of Norfolk, VA past a huge number of military vessels that are in port
for either re-supply, re-deployment or repairs. There is a huge
amount of activity related to all that and security is very tight.
There are patrol craft everywhere and most of the military ships have
floating barriers around them to prevent small boat attacks. There is
also a great deal of commercial traffic, some it *very* large. We
are sometimes like an ant walking in the midst of giants. Coming in
off of the ocean last night at 3:00AM we were surrounded by large
vessels moving in all directions, and some of them seemed very poorly
lit. Fortunately we have a good radar along with an AIS
receiver/decoder, but it still takes a lot of concentration to sort
things out.

Farther south from downtown Norfolk is very industrial and there are a
lot of gritty looking commercial docks for things llike coal loading,
petroleum products and other bulk cargo of various types. The town
of Great Bridge, where we are now, is sort of on the southern edge of
all that and the scenery becomes fairly rural between here and North
Carolina.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=136 6&bih=608&q=norfolk+naval+shipyard&oq=norfolk+nava l+&gs_l=img.1.1.0l10.2605.10225.0.17105.14.8.0.6.6 .0.105.774.4j4.8.0....0...1ac.1.53.img..0.14.791.J XDUuiTs39A

and by contrast:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=136 6&bih=608&q=icw+north+carolina&oq=icw+north+caroli na&gs_l=img.3..0i24.2314.10313.0.11770.18.6.0.12.1 2.0.180.993.0j6.6.0....0...1ac.1.53.img..0.18.1010 .ABk1JFaal8k