"Great Bridge Bridge and Great Bridge Lock" Great Bridge by grandmaR

Between our first and second trip through Great Bridge in 2001 and 2002, the bridge at Great Bridge changed from this relatively low key swing bridge to the huge enormous bascule bridge below.

The NEW Great Bridge Bascule Bridge closed 2004

The Great Bridge Lock and the Great Bridge Bridge coordinate the openings. The bridge only opens on the hour, but the lock does two lockings an hour - one southbound to coincide with the bridge opening, and one northbound after the bridge opening. This makes sense, but most guides only address southbound, and assume (wrongly in our case) that if you are coming north that you will have already done the southbound trip and will know the drill.

In the Great Bridge Lock

I still wasn't quite able to see how the lock could just open once an hour and still do both south and northbound vessels.

The way it actually worked was that the bridge called the lock and told them what was coming north, and the lock told him who was coming south. When all the southbound vessels got there, the bridge opened. Then the northbound vessels went directly into the lock.