We left Coinjock early in the morning before the dockhands arrived. The front had come through around 1 am. The wind and current were now from the north and it was cold, in the 50’s with a little wind chill. We broke out the winter clothes for the motor up the Currituck Sound.
The Sound had a light chop with the wind but it was not too rough. After the Sound, we were back in a more narrow channel. We had several bridges that opened on the hour or half hour so we adjusted our speed. We reached Great Bridge around 2 pm and entered the lock after the bridge. There was one other boat with us. We dropped about two feet in the lock.
After Great Bridge, we started to get into the Hampton Roads area. We went past container ships and then navy ships. We passed a Carnival cruise ship with a waterpark on the top deck. We went through our last bridge, the Gilmerton.
We were going to anchor at Willoughby Bay or Hampton but the wind was right for a broad reach to Cape Charles. It was our best bet to sail back instead of motoring. David knew I would go for that. We would arrive around 10.
We had some pbj wraps for dinner. Then I steered while David got the sails ready. That was when the carnival ship came out of the harbor to pass us. We went to the far left , just outside the channel. There was not too much wake. Three pilot boats accompanied the ship as well as a coast guard boat with a machine gun on the bow.
The bay crossing was lovely. We sailed until just before sunset and then the wind just died. It was so sudden, like the switch got turned off. We watched the sunset, motored a bit and the wind picked back up! We were able to sail to the channel entrance.
The channel was well lit and familiar. I spotlighted for crab pots. There were just a few on our way into the channel, then it was clear. They had bright new buoys for the season that were easy to spot.
We went to the fuel dock and tied up to go check our slip. All was quiet in Cape Charles. We walked to our slip which was empty. There was no wind and no current. David felt confident. We brought Josie slowly over and pulled in. David is getting quite good at docking. We did a port side tie to the floating dock. Our car was in the parking lot (friends had delivered it on Sunday) but we barely noticed. Tonight, this was just another marina on the journey. We wanted to spend the last night of our trip aboard Josie.