ICW... here we come, ready or not!

Norfolk, 24 October 2006, 0810 hours. Departing the marina at Mile One, we quickly rejoined the armada of snowbirds bound for Florida. With only a narrow channel and no open sea, we were forced to slow for sailboats and wait for bridges to open. Chuck always jockeyed adroitly for a good starting position, eyeballing nearby boats to avoid embarrassing "bumps" (i.e., collisions).

And they're off!

Wherever we could we surged ahead, but it was one bottleneck after another. We even had to pass through a lock, which was a show in itself. All boats must first enter the lock and tie up to one side. At this point a minor clusterf#%k ensued as nervous first-timers (not us!) vied for a spot, cutting off each other and triggering much cursing and half-assed manuevering. Chuck deftly docked us, but Walt made the mistake of jumping off to secure a bowline and got hollered at by a grizzly old dockhand for leaving the boat. Then he mumbled something that sounded like "jackass."

Once the water dropped and the lock was opened, we were on our way again, stampeding toward Florida with the rest of the herd.

By day's end we wound up 54 miles downstream at a place called Coinjack (where do they get these names, anyway?), where we had the best prime rib ever. Life was good... but little did we know what tomorrow had in store.