Location: Great Bridge, VA
Dad and I made it to the locks today and had our first grounding. I was steering but it wasn't entirely my fault. We approached the canal around four o'clock, planning on rowing ashore for supplies quickly before the locks opened at six. Just before the canal there were four boats already anchored and waiting at the gates. The small provisional anchorage was running low on room making it difficult to maneuver, but we dropped our anchor and began preparing to go ashore. I was just climbing into the dingy when an annoyed voice transmitted over the boat radio saying "all private vessels anchored on the North side of the locks, we have a red flag vessel approaching." Every head on every boat in the anchorage looked gloomily behind us. Up the canal a tug boat and a barge were steaming ahead. The radio voice continued "please make way for the vessel." Most of the boats started their engines at this point. As the tug got closer it became clear which boats were in the way, and of course we were. Dad hurried up to the bow to pull the anchor as I got behind the wheel. In the scramble we had both forgotten to turn on the depth sounder. I began making a slow lap around the remaining anchored boats, Dad stayed on the bow watching the barge go by. As we drew up close to an anchored power boat Dad yelled back to me "what's the depth?" I responded that the device wasn't on but I was as close to the power boat as I could comfortably get, thinking that if he wasn't aground I wouldn't run aground. A picture isn't always as it appears, sure enough the power boat was on the bottom. Our Tartan slowed to a stop as it's keel sank into the mud. Dad had warned me that everyone hits sand at some point or another along the ICW, that it was quite normal, but I still felt like a teenager who backed into the garage door. Getting off the bottom was easy enough though. Gunning the engine in reverse we were free to roam for a new anchorage once again.
When the click struck six the locks opened for the barge, a couple anchored vessels radioed the locks operator asking if we could accompany the barge and get through as well. By this time a long line of pleasure boats had backed up behind us, at least fifteen or twenty. The locks operator repeated that the barge was a red flag vessel so it would be going through the locks solo. Dad said that probably meant the barge was transporting flammable or dangerous material. The barge wouldn't want private vessels trapped in the same small space for fear of an accident. So after the barge, the private vessels filed through in two lines, one line tying up to the starboard side of the locks the other line to the port side. Experienced vessels stayed to the starboard side where there was rubber bumpers and cleats. Dad and I, leading the inexperienced vessels stayed to the port side where there was concrete bumpers and bollards.
Tying off to the locks, we were greeted by a curious crowd who crept closer to get a better look at us. They were a handful of red foxes and one Siamese cat, who clearly didn't get the memo. I kept telling Dad that they were foxes and he kept telling me they were all cats, neither of us had seen foxes be anything but shy. The experience was very contradictory to the pro hunting area of Virginia we were in, how could curious foxes survive here? A dock hand told us that the area was a park and that the foxes were use to boats and barges feeding them scraps.
He also told Dad and I some useful info, just past the locks was the Great Bridge Bridge, there is free docking before the bridge and after the bridge but beyond the bridge is where the barges dock. We may be inexperienced but Dad and I are quick learners, we docked before the bridge to make sure no barges squeezed us during the night.
What we ate: pancakes, steak sandwich
Spotted: the lock gates & a motor boat behind us in the locks from Mystic, CT (close to home) we almost had to make room for their anchor in our cockpit, too close for comfort (last picture)
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