We finally set out and headed into the ICW today. Easy off the dock in the morning and motored out of Hampton, into the bay and then across to the Elizabeth River to start our way down the ICW. It was very windy and on the nose, so we motored across. The area was very busy with traffic, so probably best that we were under motor. We ogled all the large ships in port at the naval yards, and dodged a few ships under tow coming down the river. It was all rather chaotic thinking back on it.
After we got around all the traffic in the channel, we heard on the VHF about the Belt Line Railway Bridge being offline and in the closed position, meaning it can't open for traffic. We hadn't really done much planning on the bridges and everything yet, and so we looked it up and realized this was one of the first lifting bridges along the ICW. It's usually up by default and lowers for train traffic. I think there had been a fire or something, and the bridge was currently under repair. So that kind of limited our progress for the day, and we needed to find a place to stop.
Our first hope was maybe the free docks in Portsmouth, but that proved to be full (unsurprisingly), so we circled back and anchored at Hospital Point which we had passed on the way down. It was a very busy anchorage (lots of boats in the same situation of not being able to transit further), but we found a spot at the north end of the anchorage. We were set ok, but ended up dragging a tiny bit after a few hours. By then a bunch of other boats had come in behind us, so we raised anchor and re-anchored in a bit closer where the anchor set very solidly and we didn't have to worry as much about dragging into someone.
It was a windy evening, then a dead clam night to begin with. A night warm night too, and I was able to spend some time sitting out in the cockpit comfortably. The wind picked up late in the night around 3am which was a bit unsettling. The wind had come around in direction, and we were only a hundred feet or so from being pushed ashore, but our anchor held tight and it ended up being no problem. But not the best sleep when you are listening to the wind whistling while worrying about getting washed ashore.
