A Kiwi couple's cruising adventures on America's Great Loop and around the coast of New Zealand

Saturday 4 May 2019

Finishing the Loop #5 - Carry me back to ole Virginney


Thursday 2nd May – Coinjock NC (again)

Shortly after posting the last entry (sailing up and down the 4NM stretch of the North River), we were informed that the broken bridge wasn’t going to be fixed today and we were heading back to Coinjock to wait until it was – hopefully by the next day. We arrived there around 5pm and everyone got off to stretch their legs and a few stopped by the bar/restaurant for a drink. Now….we had been told by Jasmine, our cruise director, that Coinjock was in the middle of nowhere and had nothing to see – which wasn’t a problem since our first arrival had been at 9pm with a 5am departure the next day. However, I had been told by several people in Beaufort, that Coinjock’s marina restaurant was renowned for its Prime Rib, and I passed this on to the staff – none of whom seemed to believe me, particularly John, our Tour Historian. So we went to the bar and looked at the menu and (thankfully) not only was Prime Rib on the menu, but it was described as “World Famous”.  Accordingly, John felt duty bound to test this claim out and ordered the meal as a take-out - he hadn’t planned on eating dinner with us that evening, as he was supposed to be visiting friends in Norfolk and hadn’t ordered dinner from the ships galley. Naturally I couldn’t let him be alone in the skullduggery of smuggling contraband food aboard the ship, so I ordered a portion as well. It was kind of difficult to hide the evidence during dinner, so we confessed to the waiting staff what we had done and they seemed OK with it and, in mitigation, we did also have some of the lamb racks that were on the menu that night, as well as the key lime pie desert – and we did share some of the rib with fellow diners too.
Anyway, two other passengers from Canada had also gone ashore and had the fried chicken (which is also considered world class) from the restaurant – they just didn’t bring it back to the ship like we did, but still had the pie. We figured that fate had determined that we partake of the Rib and had arranged the bridge to be broken just so we could return to Coinjock to sample it – that’s our excuse so we’re sticking with it.

Friday 3rd May – Norfolk VA

At breakfast the Captain gave us the bad news that the bridge had not been fixed - the Army Corps of Engineers, who maintain it, didn’t even work on it overnight. So the plan was for those on the tour of Yorktown, which was most of the passengers, would take the bus from Coinjock and return there in the afternoon. It was originally hoped that the ship could get through the Nth River bridge and meet up with them in Yorktown, but they couldn’t rely on that happening. So at 10am, they all departed and the remaining 7 passengers (us included) arranged that we would eat out (Fried chicken, off course) and give the galley staff a break. So the bus departed, and we settled in to a day of waiting and wondering where to next. Then, around 11am, the Captain came over the intercom and announced that the bridge had told them that they would make a one-off opening for us and we were departing Coinjock “within minutes”. Apparently Blount and the Coastguard had leaned heavily on the USACE and they had begrudgingly agreed to manually opening for us. Which is just as well as the alternatives were looking like we would finish the rest of the trip overland, which would stuff up our Great Loop closure somewhat!

I can’t help feeling the 3 US Army Landing craft that pulled into Coinjock for fuel and were heading upriver as well may have had some bearing on the decision, as well – but I’m just a cynic.



The new plan is to go to Norfolk and do the Naval Base tour, then go straight to Annapolis, bypassing Yorktown. Since most of the passengers are visiting there by bus today, they will have seen it and will catch up with us in Norfolk tonight. That’s the plan, but we all know about the best laid of them!

I still can’t get email on the ship and have to rely on marina wifi to get it, so I can’t let always notify my NZ followers of a posting. So just keep looking at the Blog from time to time to pick up the new postings – it should get better once we get on land again, after Monday.

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