Day 54

Well early this morning Denis and Karen took off. We were going to wait until early afternoon on the assumption that the forecast would be correct and the wind would start to die down…which of course was untrue.
I called dad to wish him a happy birthday and had a brief chat with Kari since he was at work. It was nice talking =] and I lawled at her story, which I would tell because it was good but I value my life haha =D.
Later papa and I walked to the post office…he said he knew where he was going and I asked where it was after walking about 2 blocks and his response was “just up ahead”…4 blocks later I asked where it was and he said “just around the corner”…just around the corner I commented about the length of “just up ahead” and he said “let’s go this way I think I went a block to far”…2 blocks later he stopped and looked around and said “I was heading to the wrong steeple it’s the one over there I think”… I looked over there and saw 4 steeples in different directions and various distances away… so we kept walking and 3 blocks after that we finally found the post office so I could mail my siblings birthday gifts home lmao! (just as a side comment from the post office to the boat was no more than 5 blocks on the way home).
Well by now it was time for us to set out and head down to Dismal Swamp. Once we got out of the protected river it was blowing! Crossing into Norfolk we had anywhere from 27-30knots of apparent wind! And big waves and freighters! Then we passed the Navy’s docks with all their battleships! It was pretty neat. While we were passing we noticed the surveillance. Fighter planes kept circling the area. We had to get through a few bridges and we almost missed the last one. Papa called ahead to the bridge operator and she said if we could make it in 3mins she’d open the bridge. Papa replied that he believed we could and all she said was ‘bring it on captain!’ We made the bridge and docked for the night at a free dock not that far away. It was sooooo cold! And we closed the hatch, played scrabble and at night it was fifty below I swear it was 10degrees colder in my berth! Grama jokingly said you can come sleep in our bed…so jokingly I did xD I grabbed 2 of my blankets and ran over to their berth, I expected them to smack me and send me back but they didn’t lmao and I laid and watched a movie in their toasty warm bed haha. Eventually we all called it a night and I moved back to my FREEZING cold bunk =[.

Niki