Norfolk Story

Norfolk is a very interesting town; I used to live not far from here in the early 60s.  We arrived after motoring the whole way from Deltaville; we had wind, but it was coming directly from where we were headed, so no sails were set this day.  Again, we saw that pretty brown-sailed boat making her way along a similar path.  Lighthouses, Navy planes, pelicans, freighters, and as we closed in on Norfolk, more and more barges and freighters.  We motored over the Hampton Roads tunnel; I've driven through it before, but never went over it by water.  It's cool to see the road just disappear underwater and reappear across the way.

With a strong Navy presence, we were awed by the variety, size, and sheer number of boats lining the sides of the Elizabeth River as we made our way to the Waterside Marina where we would spend the night. 

For quite a ways, it was just fleet after fleet of military boats and submarines, finally switching to container ships and coal operations.  Just so much to look at and, from an engineering point of view, fascinatingly complicated.

Finally, we saw taller buildings and the markings of a bustling downtown, including neon, which was just fine with us.  We pulled into our berth and settled in for the evening.  Boat time was starting to take effect in our daily lives.  I have been used to being a night owl, but on the boat, we tend to turn in earlier and earlier and rise earlier and earlier.   I know some of my friends will have a hard time with that last bit of information.  Even motoring, a lot of work goes into it, from navigating ("Where's the next ding-dang green mark?")  to avoiding crab traps (makes me crazy!) and other boats, of course.

Rachel and Elliott

Next morning, Elliott met up with a former high school friend who is going to college in the Norfolk area, so he was gone until early afternoon.  Gary and I walked over to the Chrysler Art Museum for a few hours; we loved the exhibit on the leather jacket appropriately named "Worn to be Wild," the pop art, and were quite disturbed by a photography exhibit called Tulsa by photographer Larry Clark about the heyday of drug use in his hometown in the 70s.  Left me shaken.

The glass studio had an exhibit at noon and that was fun to watch as the young glassblowers turned out a drinking cup made to look like a top hat.  Wonderful art.

After we met up with Elliott again, we decided to check out the main drag for late lunch options; found Hell's Kitchen and a love relationship was born.  Highly recommend if you're ever in town and I sure hope you get Fuzzy Wuzzy as your server.  Vegan stuffed peppers!!!!  (We went back the next day, too!)

We met Andrea, one-half of the crew of Imagine at the dock; very amiable person. We noticed that the brown-sailed boat had come into the marina, too; cool, I wanted to meet them since we'd seen them so much.  So when I saw the guy out on his deck, I hurried Gary along to go say hello.  I could hear them laughing from across the way, so I scurried over, too, to say hello.  Les, on the beautiful Elizabeth, is soloing all the way down to Florida.  Very nice guy with a great sense of humor; I told him I had taken some photos of his boat underway and offered to send them to him via email.

After staying in the marina one night, we decided to gas up across the river and then anchor nearer to Portsmouth where we joined an already decent-sized group of sailboats.  We went into Portsmouth to get groceries, but the food store we found really only had snacks, so we hit a very hot Dollar General to get bread and milk (and some snacks).  Gary got his haircut at a barber shop by a guy named Punkin, who did a really fantastic job, especially since the shop is geared more toward a different type of hair.

   

In the afternoon, we visited the Norfolk Southern museum and revisited Hell's Kitchen for yet another great meal.  Black bean burger for me this time; awesome.  And we had Fuzzy Wuzzy again; how lucky were we?

That evening, I turned in early, but woke shortly after to howling winds and the sound of Gary sounding the signal horn!  I didn't know what was going on, but bounded out of bed and dressed quickly just in case I was needed.  Out of nowhere, a squall had surprised us with such speed and power; the signal was sent because the guys noticed one of our fellow sailboaters' anchor had dragged free and the boat was slipping  dangerously close to the commercial shipping lane. 

While we were bouncing around (me scared out of my wits), Gary realized that we, too, were dragging anchor and that things could get very dangerous very quickly.   Ended up that  almost every boat in the anchorage needed to take evasive action that night.  Besides the shipping lanes, we could either hit or be hit by any number of other boats in our nearby vicinity.  Elliott worked on the bow making sure the anchor was being set properly while I saw in the cockpit, white-knuckled and never taking my eye of Elliott. 

It was a harrowing experience; thankfully, Gary and the other captains got their boats back into safe places, well, except the initial one Gary had warned.  I am thinking no one was on it at the time; they kept moving further and further away and it looked like they were right smack dab in the middle of the shipping lane; very scary.  Eventually, though, we saw them coming back to our area; I think they'd been downtown and had to dinghy back over to reboard their boat and bring it under control.   

The winds eventually died down and it was like it never happened, except for the adrenaline rushing through our veins.

Sleep that night did not come easy.