As noted yesterday, repairs to a railroad bridge 5 miles south of Norfolk meant that we'd start our ICW travels tomorrow, giving us a day to relax and take in Norfolk. We began the morning with Stonewall Kitchen's apple cider donuts (courtesy of Sally who'd given us a mix) and had to improvise a donut pan using foil and parchment paper. Our apple cider donut sticks came out very tasty.
Today's forecast was for temps to reach 70 and sunny so we finally were able to take off some layers and even feel comfortable in shorts and no jackets. We took advantage of the calm morning to tape up some rips we've noticed in the UV panel on the jib and hope they'll last long enough to see us through the next 6 months. As the temperatures had risen by noon, we then showered in our bathing suits on the stern and skipped the $12 dinghy landing fee at the marina in favor of the free town dock in Portsmouth across the river from Norfolk. However, there was again an unusually high tide and we had to take our shoes off to get from the dinghy dock to the shore, wading through the sea water. But, the dinghy dock was super convenient as it was adjacent to a water shuttle that runs every 30 minutes between Portsmouth and Norfolk.
We'd decided to simply walk the streets of Norfolk and pick up a sandwich en route. We were very pleased to discover a nice waterfront walk called the Cannonball Trail. On our walk we found a Chinese Pagoda and garden, a nice old cobblestone section of the city (Freemason St), lunch at the Norfolk Cheese Shop, and concluded our walk with a stop at the church that had a cannonball lodged in its southern wall. Apparently, Lord Dunbarton, the British Governor of VA, was not happy and had his troops fire on the colonists but missed. Downtown Norfolk was virtually void of people, save the city workers who were installing Christmas decorations around town. Most restaurants were closed up from Covid. We concluded there were more parking lots and parking spaces than people, really rather sad, as we remember stopping in Norfolk in May when things were a lot livelier. It seems the city is trying but it really seems to be in need of people.
More king tides required wading from the dinghy to dry land
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