" When Pigs Fly"

Renaming the Viking.  Her former name was Fiasco.  After considering other alternatives we decided to stay with the Pig.  

Final touches

We have two boating days under our belt in the new Pig and I’m happy to report overwhelming success!  We left Norfolk yesterday (Sunday) about 11am in sunshine and relatively balmy weather. 

  

Our timing was predetermined by the Great Bridge Lock.  They are still working on the “duck tape schedule”.  The pumps don’t work well enough to raise the water in the lock when the tide is high, although that really only amounts to 4 or 5 feet.  They can limp along well enough though to get a couple of feet of water pumped in so boats can lock through during low tide.  Compared to the big (60 to 90 ft) locks we did on the river this seems trivial but the bottom line is you can be stuck on one side over those two feet of water.  Yesterday, that meant the lock would operate between 1pm and 5 or 6pm. 

Since the Captain and I hadn’t actually untethered the new boat it took a little longer.  Diesel engines have their own idiosyncrasies and the electronics panels are set up completely different from the Carver.  There were a lot of things we had to figure out.  We’ve got a pretty steep learning curve but it helps to know we’ll be honing our skills over the next three weeks or so.  We planned carefully how to untie the boat and I got the lines off, jumped on the boat and the Captain pulled away from the dock like we were old hands.  Nice to have a smooth start. 

The Captain at the helm.  

We navigated through Norfolk harbor and hit our first bridge where our two guidebooks quoted the height at 11ft.  We held up just short of the final bend in the river where there was room to maneuver the boat and called the bridge tender. We were told the next opening was in about 45 minutes. The Captain did an outstanding job of keep the vessel positioned in the water while we waited.  When there was about 15 minutes left before the scheduled opening another boat pulled in to view behind us.  We heard that skipper call the bridge tender to ask the clearance on the bridge.  The reply was 35ft.  Frank and I looked at each other.  We only need 24 feet to clear a bridge!  The Captain hit the throttle and we rounded the bend for a clear view of the bridge.  Sure enough, both the guide book and the chart were wrong.  We had been waiting 30 minutes for nothing. 

You can't think of Norfolk without thinking of the Navy

As annoying as this sounds the next bridge opened only on the hour and we would have had to wait there instead so it all worked out in the end.  We hit the lock at a good time and only had to lock through with one other boat.  Because of the schedule I was stressing about needing to do that with a big crowd of boats.  It’s just like traffic in cars, the more boats there are in a confined place the more chances there are for something to go wrong.  The Captain got us up against the lock wall and we got tied off easily.  I even started to relax!

We only went about 35 miles yesterday but with the bridges, the lock, needing fuel (I can’t say gas any more) and a pump out it seemed like a full day.  We were glad to get docked for the night, again with no problems and toasted our first day on the new Pig. 

These guys were out in force today

We had another short day today.  It was only 37 miles to Coinjock Marina in Coinjock, NC.  It was pretty cloudy when we pulled away from the dock about 9am but the sun finally came out and it was a good cruising day.  Warm enough for shorts and T-shirts.  We got in about 1pm, washed the boat and are looking forward to eating out tonight.  Coinjock Restaurant is known for their prime rib. That makes the Captain happy and lucky for me, the seafood is supposed to be good too. 

I got a little time at the controls too.  That's the remote to the auto pilot in my hand.  

We’ll have a longer day tomorrow but right now we are enjoying the quiet view from the back deck and a couple of brews. 

See ya on the water