Jim: Down the Chesapeake to Norfolk

We have arrived at our first major destination. We reached Norfolk Naval Marina at 1330 on Saturday the 11th. On our way down the Chesapeake we had little wind for sailing. The good part of this is we also had little waves for motoring. It was a great passage of approximately 170nm.


It is weird being the biggest boat in the marina.

Now for a look at our voyage. We had just rounded our home channel marker and headed out on day one when we passed the sailing ship "Pride of Baltimore II". It was ghosting along at about 2 knots and looking beautiful. I was a little worried about the cannons aimed at us, but we made it by without incident.


Pride of Baltimore II

The scenery in the Chesapeake is incredible. Every morning we would wake to a beautiful sunrise and a hot cup of coffee. Not too shabby.


Sunrise at Mill Creek off the Great Wicomico



Sunrise at Chissem Creek off the Poquoson River

As we passed through the Norfolk shipping channel, Pat got her first taste of sitting next to a bazillion ton ship going 30 knots.


Big boys play here.

After the container ships passed, another type of Big Boy came around the corner. The USS Wasp was coming up the channel to complete a 10 month cruise. The boys were all in their dress blues manning the rails for the docking. I remember doing that about a million times. We always hated it, but it does look pretty cool for the shore crowd.


See the little figures on the rails?


She is just a small carrier, imagine the big ones.

No major equipment issues so far. We did realize that we had seriously underestimated our need for Internet usage. Without Internet access, the ship's Chief Meteorologist (Pat) didn't have the tools to give us a proper weather update. On Sunday the 12th, a surprise storm overtook Norfolk. Lucky for us we were tied to the dock with all lines doubled up. The wind blew at 25 to 30 knots constant with gust to 50 knots. I was down on the boat for about 2 hours when the storm was at its worst. Even in the marina, it was a heck of a blow. I don't want to scare you but I did manage to take this picture of a ship that I saw out in the storm.


I sure hope those folks are OK. It was called the "TI" something, I couldn't make out the name.

We hunkered down at my buddy Brad's house and he lent us a car for our errands. The first thing we bought was a Verizon WiFi card to follow the weather more closely. That's our excuse. And what good is a new card without a new laptop. The on-board weather station now consists of a Toshiba with WiFi card and all-you-can-eat Internet access. This should also make it easier to update the blog. So now we have more computing ability then the Apollo space program.

We plan to leave the area on Friday and head into the Inter-coastal Waterway (ICW). The reason for the long stay is that another big storm is projected to hit us on Wednesday night and continue until Friday morning. Being the ships Chief Coward, I convinced the rest of the crew that sitting next to a dock in big winds is a lot better then sitting in some cove with two anchors out and lines tied to trees. "I learned that in Rehab" :-) The fact that Brad has a hot tub had nothing to do with our decision. Honest!

Cheers to all,

J & P