This is not the first posting we’ve had here on the Cruisers’ Net concerning the great dining at Amber Lantern Restaurant, hard by Top Rack Marina. Really must give this place a try SOON!

Cruising News:
Wow what a great gormet meal and the dockage is free. We highly recommend this Restaurant, Could be the best on the ICW.
Ron & Audrey aboard Lucky Girl

Cruising News:
We stayed at Top Rack Marina, ( just before Dominion Highway Bridge) Chesapeake VA last night. They have the cheapest Diesel in the area. They also have some slips available. We have a 62′ Vicking. She is really too big to stay here but they made it work. For smaller boats it is perfect. The folks here are very nice and helpful. If you dine at the Restaurant and spend at least $75.00 the stay at the Marina is free. The Restaurant is five star. Food, presentation, service, ambiance is perfect. Will be back.
Claudia Young

Cruising News:
Still the best stop for either the Coinjock jog, or the Dismal saunter. Free overnight and electricity if you eat in the really outstanding Amber Lantern. $336.9/gallon diesel.
Dock boys waited for us until after 6:00pm due to a delay at the Gilmerton Bridge and a really long coal train. Fuel, pump out, outstanding dinner, and a good night’s sleep. We’ll come back this way again and again.
Jim & Talley

Cruising News: Amber Lantern Restaurant Top Rack Marina
Wow, what a great gormet meal and the dockage is free. We highly recommend this Restaurant, Could be the best on the ICW.
Ron & Audrey aboard Lucky Girl

The following discussion has been copied, with all author’s permission, from the MTOA List Serve. All of us at the Salty Southeast Crusiers’ Net continue to highly recommend a membership in the MTOA for ALL trawler owners. You won’t find a better bunch of cruisers anywhere.
The one and only lock on the primary AICW North Carolina – Virginia Cut/Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal route, is located at Great Bridge. The discussion below centers around dockage and shoreside opportunities at this location.
I have never had the good fortune to sample the dining attraction reported on below by Captain George, but it WILL be on my to-do list, effective immediately!!

Just a Note we passed through Great Bridge on 9/28 and stayed at the south dock before the bridge and found a couple of boats had been there for a few days and were staying longer the stay is posted for 24 hours but some are not doing that so the wall can get over loaded very fast. You can also tie up to the wall on the other side as long as you stay back from the bridge so the tow’s can get by, you have to tie to the trees or drive a stake in the ground. When we went through the bridge the dock on the east side had signs on it that it was closed for the park construction my guess is that you can use it but it looked very hard to get off the boat because of the construction fence barrier.. just our observations.
Larry & Margie Ross
Wanderin’ L&M
55′ Hampton

While you are at Great Bridge DO NOT FORGET to eat at Franks 2 Italian Restaurant.It is located north of the Great Bridge in a shopping center just past Kellys Pub.Frank is from NY and his food is very good.If you like N.Y. pizza then you must stop at Franks.I love good Italian!
George Kay
Summer Slopes
36 Marine Trader

We came through Great Bridge on Oct 19. The Lock Master told us that the dock across from Atlantic Yacht Basin had been closed off and docking banned by the company building the museum on that site. The usual wall between the lock and bridge had been full the night before and the locktenders let people tie up to the entrance wall on the Norfolk side of the lock. She also said that tying up to the trees on the left side between the lock and bridge was risky as commercial traffic had priority on that side and could demand that you move.
Chuck Berry

Pungo Ferry Bridge crosses the Waterway at mile 28 and has a vertical clearance of 65ft. The anchorage is charted at 9-12ft.

Subject: shoaling
Cruising News: There is shoaling at the anchorage at the Pungo Ferry Bridge spot just north of the bridge across from the old closed marina. This would be the anchorage to the right of the bridge as you are facing south.
Sami and Barry
s/v Ever After

There is limited tie up at closed marina at Pungo Ferry. There was no hassle for overnight tie up. 40 foot ketch said all anchorages listed in area are shoaled over, so this closed marina is only place to stop. Actually there is channel around back of marina and more space if your boat is shallow.
Fishing boats used Channel to ramp behind closed marina. Channel was about 20 wide. It could handle 10 foot beam easily, maybe 12 foot. At least 4′ deep, probably more.
I suspect that a trawler type boat could comfortably tie up in back. It would provide protected anchorage.
Ed Kroposki

Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Pungo Ferry Bridge

For those of you not wanting to fight with the crowding around Norfolk and Portsmouth, our friend Peter TenHagen suggests a quieter, less congested alternative. The Hampton River departs Hampton Roads north and west of Old Point Comfort approximately 11 nautical miles north of Mile Zero.

A sleeper of a municipal pier is the Hampton Piers on the Hampton River which runs north a ways when you come to Old Point Comfort whether north or south bound. A long stretch on the east side of the channel from red daymark Number 20 to a marina farther up is designated for transient anchoring and will comfortably hold half a dozen boats. Hampton Piers recognizes anchorees as valuable visitors to the City of Hampton and provides them a dinghy dock, trash disposal, water, and free use of their fleet of well maintained single speed bicycles for getting around town. They also offer showers for $1 each – as far as I am aware the only thing they charge for. On Fridays and Saturdays in the summer a free jitney bus runs a 30 minute loop up to the huge Peninsula Mall from noon to midnight both days. A Food Lion supermarket lies a 10 minute walk from available dinghy dockage on the short canal west of the Blue Water Marina. And dockage is only $1.25 a foot this time of year usually with lots of available slips. The Hampton River is quiet for the most part (some fish processing docks make a bit of noise) with an enforced 5mph no wake zone throughout – kayaking is pleasant and there are some areas where wildlife abounds. All in all a good layover heading north or south around the Norfolk area with friendly welcoming people to greet you.
Peter TenHagen

Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Hampton River

The following exchange of information is copied from the American Great Loop Cruisers’ Association forum, an organization, by the way, we continue to HIGHLY recommend!
LOTS of good info here about marina facilities in the southern Norfolk, VA region!!!

I have recently purchased a Marine Trader 40 Sundeck and will begin my journey later in July from Charleston, SC to my home in Racine, WI. I need to be home in August for two weeks and am looking for a less expensive slip in a Marina near Norfolk. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Dennis Barkow
Aboard Reunion, Marine Trader 40 Sundeck

We stayed at Ocean Marine for two months in the fall of ’09 and enjoyed it immensely. It is in Portsmouth, very convenient and well run.
Hal

Try Cobb’s Marina, Norfolk, 757-588-5401 and Scott’s Creek Marina, Portsmouth, 757-399-2628. They are most likely to have the lowest transient prices. Both are listed in the Skipper Bob Marinas Guide.
Ted Stehle, editor
Skipper Bob Publications

Check out Rebel Marine. Really nice folks. Not too near downtown, but not far from the airport.They have a courtesy car for local shopping.
Mitch

We stayed at Cobbs Marina last summer for three weeks and found them to be excellent. Close to restaurants, and shopping and buses for traveling into town.
Please be aware that if you choose to use Cobbs, when you enter the channel into little creek you are transitting a naval amphibious base and have to call channel 12 to request permission to transit the inlet. Turn right at the large orange buoys as these mark the perimeter of the base. Also you can refuel across the creek from Cobbs marina.
Mike and Gail Preston
Happy Hours V

Mile Marker 0 marine supply in Portsmouth Virginia has propane exchange/sales and will fill any tank for our customers. We will deliver it to their boat or they can drop off and pick up later.
Bob McBride

Top Rack Marina is one of several worthy facilities while lie along the path of the AICW in the Norfolk, VA area.

Just a recommendation for those in your vicinity
Head over to Top Rack Marina – a new spot on the Virginia cut just north of the Steel Bridge. If you eat at their fantastic restaurant they will give you dockage for free with electric. We found this spot by chance after the wall at the Great Bridge lock was full and we motored on north. The restaurant, the Amber Lantern is wonderful, great food. Look at the review in Yelp.com.
Greg and Susan Han

Cruising News:
Our last stop on our `Carolina Loop’ is the Top Rack Marina, the perfect end to a perfect cruise.
Just about a mile south of the Gilmerton Bridge and junction of the Intracoastal Waterways numbers one and two is the quiet and peaceful Top Rack Marina. Ideal location is only one of the exceptional things about this marina. There are no transient slip fees if you have dinner in the `Amber Lantern’, a really outstanding restaurant worthy of the trip by either land or sea. A great and attentive staff completes this magnificent refuge. They even came by the boat later in the evening to make sure everything was okay, and see if we enjoyed dinner.
The last stop before home and the first stop on our next cruise south. We will be back.
Jim & Talley Powell aboard Dawn to Dusk MTOA # 3826

Cruising News:
The VA Eastern Shore town of Cape Charles has just opened 50 new floating slips
that are available to transients. We just used the new facility paying $1.50/ft – they have a full service fuel dock with pump-out as well. There are face docks available to accommodate vessels to at least 100′. Cape Charles Harbor is a deep, well marked (multiple lighted range marks) small commercial port with a USCG station next to the town marina. These new slips offer a new option to those visiting the southern part of the Bay and are much easier to reach than venturing further north up a narrow and shallow privately marked channel to the more expensive Bay Creek Marina.
Harry Burns

Although the slips with power are limited (2), this will prove to be a convenient stop if you want to avoid the congestion of Norfolk and Portsmouth.

We stopped for the Night at Top Rack Marina just north of the Steel Bridge on the VA ICW. We found a great spot with diesel at 3.55 incld tax. This is the best price I have found in the area. They have a fine dining restaurant the Amber Lantern that has a wonderful fine dining menu. They frayed fresh pasta, steaks and mediterranean style seafood. One one the best meals I have had. If you buy dinner the dockage is free. The Fresh Market is 1.5 miles away and they brought us there and back to shop. Overall a great stop.
When leaving Top Rack this morning I realized that this is a viable stop for boaters taking either the Virginia Cut or the Dismal Swamp route. The high bridge at the junction of the Dismal route is in sight of the marina.
Gregory Han

Yesterday we made our northbound transit of Dismal Swamp spending last night at Elizabeths free dock at Deep Creek.
This morning took on fuel at Top Rack Marina at $3.55 per gal. and stayed to enjoy free dockage, which included 50 amp power, in return for eating at the excellent restaurant on site” Amber Lantern”. An offer most difficult to decline!.
Noted that diesel is now priced at $ 3.63 per gallon but understand it is still below other outlets in the area. Either transiting north or south, Dismal Swamp or Coinjack Top Rack is a “must stop” for us.
Colin Day & Jean Henderson aboard LILY MARIA

Just a recommendation for those in your vicinity
Head over to Top Rack Marina – a new spot on the VIrginia cut just north of the Steel Bridge. If you eat at their fantastic restaurant they will give you dockage for free with electric. We found this spot by chance after the wall at the Great Bridge lock was full and we motored on north. The restaurant, the Amber Lantern is wonderful, great food.
Greg and Susan Han
USCG 100GT Master, Near Coastal
Key Biscayne, FL
Allegria — Krogen Whaleback #16
In Chesapeake Bay for the summer

Click Here To View the Cruisers’ Net’s VA to NC Bridge Directory Listing For Steel Bridge

Click Here To View A Cruiser’s Comments on Top Rack Marina

This facility is located hard by “Steel Bridge.”

Top Rack is primarily a lift and store marina just north of the Dominion Blvd ( Steel ) Bridge. Today the docking price is $1.25 per foot which is excused if you have dinner in their Amber Lantern Restaurant. They only have two slips with power but they will put you down at the south end of the marina so you can run your generator. The new, floating docks are long enough that you can bow or stern in. The people are friendly.
Jim Bertch

We first posted these new restrictions in November of last year. Please note that the “temporary” restrictions continue until 2013! Gilmerton Highway Bascule Bridge with a closed vertical clearance of 11ft crosses the AICW south of Norfolk at Statute Mile 5.8, south of flashing daybeacon #22.

The Gilmerton Bridge is restricted from 3:30 pm through 6:30 pm. We learned this the hard way, as all information we could find, including the city website, said the restriction was until 5:30 pm. After clearing the north lock on the Dismal Swamp, then motoring very slowly toward Norfolk, we arrived at 4:20 to be informed by the bridge tender that the bridge would not open until 6:30. This put us into Norfolk in the dark. If we had know about the change, we would have made much different plans.
Skipper Glen Moore aboard Last Dance

Click Here To View the Cruisers’ Net’s Bridge Directory Listing For Gilmerton Hwy Bridge

Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Gilmerton Hwy Bridge

Click Here To View An Earlier Article on Gilmerton Bridge

Top Rack Marina, ICW ST 8.8, just upstream from the Steel Bridge
Diesel fuel $3.18/ gallon
Transient slips $1.00/foot
Amber Lantern restaurant written up this morning in the Virginian Pilot
(757) 227 3041 (marina)
(757) 227 3057 (restaurant)
http://www.toprackmarina.com
Jim Powell

Phew!!! Well, at least, even closed, this span has “approximately 65 feet” of vertical clearance!

UNCLAS //N16670//
SUBJ: SAFETY BROADCAST NOTICE TO MARINERS
HRD BNM 586-10
VA – CHESAPEAKE BAY – ELIZABETH RIVER – SOUTHERN BRANCH
MARINERS ARE ADVISED THAT THE I-64 HIGH RISE BRIDGE OVER THE SOUTHERN BRANCH OF THE ELIZABETH RIVER IS CLOSED TO VESSELS REQUIRING AN OPENING UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. THE AVAILABLE VERTICAL CLEARANCE OF THE BRIDGE IN THE CLOSED POSITION IS APPROXIMATELY 65 FEET, ABOVE MEAN HIGH WATER. VESSELS REQUIRING GREATER VERTICAL CLEARANCE ARE ASKED TO ADJUST THEIR TRANSITS ACCORDINGLY.