We spent 2 nights at Great Bridge, there are free docks either side of the bridge, it's unusual for us to be tied up alongside the shore - last time we spent a night not at anchor was in Santa Marta, Colombia! it's a good stop for easy access to shops, laundry and propane tank filling with the bonus of not having to lug everything in the dinghy. 

Last night we went out with Greg and Steph from Lulu to a bar with live music which made a pleasant change. Today they moved on up to the Chesapeake in the 9am lock (it's the only lock on this route north and only opens once an hour), we did laundry and a bit of shopping before heading off at midday, we only had a short distance to go but quite a few bridges including 3 railway bridges - luckily only one bridge was down for a long slow train to pass by so we were only held up for a short time, on route we saw a few barges with tugs pushing them - silly me forgot to put the memory card back in my camera, so although I took lots of pictures there aren’t any!

When we got to Portsmouth we managed to squeeze into the North harbour inlet which was a lot busier than last time we were here, there is now a 40ft maximum boat length and 36 hour max stay, hopefully no one will notice we are a bit bigger than that!

Unfortunately Bob and the Mile Marker 0 chandlery are no longer here, we had read that it had moved a few blocks but when we went there it was a hairdressers and it seems to have closed permanently which is a pity as we were looking forward to seeing Bob again. 

We did decide to go to the cinema - it's a little different  you  go and eat at tables with a phone at each table to order your food and more drinks when you want, then watch the film - we saw Rocketman which was good - the air con was set a little low though as it was freezing after a while.