Thursday, April 18, 2013

Day 32 – N 37° 15.886’ W 76° 01.105’ Cape Charles, VA


Peter manipulating robotic arm

What a wonderful day ashore in Norfolk yesterday, visiting the Nauticus museum which also features the battleship Wisconsin and the Naval Museum. The museum was very interactive. Peter “drove” a virtual tug pushing a barge, and we both tried our hand at working the robotic arm of a deep submersible vehicle. There was a submarine periscope that we could manipulate and see the marina in the harbor where Kite was docked. Visitors could walk freely about the decks of the battleship Wisconsin and also view some of its interior spaces. We enjoyed Nauticus so much we spent the whole day there except for going out for a great lunch at a fun diner called D’Egg in downtown Norfolk. This morning we were ready to move on and take advantage of the southerly winds. 

Lyn looking through periscope
Looking ahead at the weather, we needed to find someplace very secure because the weather forecast for Friday and Saturday includes t’storms and high winds.   We looked at some anchorages on the western side of the Bay, in Mobjack Bay, that we could get to in 6 to 8 hours.  The extended weather forecast did not seem much improved, so we were looking at the possibility of an extended stay, or trying to relocate on Saturday afternoon, after the morning rains stopped.  All we could find was to cross the Bay and go into Cape Charles harbor, which featured an inexpensive town dock and places to walk or ride our bikes to see the sights.  Then we thought about it and decided to just go straight to Cape Charles and spend some time there seeing the town, and forget about Mobjack Bay, which would have been a secluded anchorage, but not much to do for 2 days.  It turned out to be about 5 miles closer than Mobjack Bay, when Peter plotted it out on the chartplotter.  So that settled it – Cape Charles was our next destination and we would spend a few days there.

Peter "driving" tugboat
We woke up with the sun (which gets up at 06:30 over here in the east) and had a leisurely breakfast and departed a little after 08:00.  As we motored out of Norfolk harbor area, we saw a sailboat slowly sailing downwind out of the harbor area.  We were motoring, so we overtook it, and to our surprise – it was Burt, the man who had run aground for 4 days in the Neuse river and, after being rescued, was brought to the commercial fishing docks where we were tied up in Hobucken, NC.  He’d apparently gotten his boat repaired, but he told us as we passed him, that his engine wasn’t working.  Poor Burt.  But he was headed for New Jersey, and was nearly there so I guess he figured he could make it under sail power.

Lyn on the bow of Wisconsin
We got to the top of Norfolk harbor, and headed east into the Bay.  We had enough wind by this time to put up our sails and shut off the engine.  Ahh – the peace and quiet of wind propulsion!  The wind was light for the first half hour, and we barely made 4 knots, but we knew it would freshen as we got into the open waters of the Bay, as it did.  We were headed northeast, across the Bay to the eastern shore, and the wind was from the southeast, a perfect direction for fast sailing.  As it strengthened our speed increased, until we are making nearly 7 knots.  We sailed for more than 3 ½ hours like this, and then we had to stop because the entry channel for Cape Charles was near.  We arrived at the dock in Cape Charles before 14:00, less than 6 hours after we departed.  Peter calculated our average speed to be 5.6 knots, and most of it under sail alone.  A perfect day!

When we arrived, we had to go register at the dock office, and it turns out that this dock is used mostly by crab fishermen.  They were pulling up to an unloading area in their boats, and off loading their bushel baskets of crabs, which were being loaded directly into the backs of trucks for immediate delivery to restaurants and seafood stores.  We saw one boat unload 24 bushels of crabs, and there were at least 20 boats that either had unloaded or were waiting to do so.  Four or five trucks were lined up to receive their bounty.  These watermen talk funny, too.  They have a strange, unique accent that we haven’t figured out yet, a little like Scottish, but not the same.  We commented to the marina staff how skillfully they maneuvered their boats, and they said we should come back in August when they have a contest to see how fast they can get from the unloading dock to a specific slip, then backed into it and tied up.  They said the record was something like 25 seconds!

Lyn prepared a nice evening meal of striped bass (in honor of Burt?), rice and grapes topped off with the rest of the French cabernet sauvignon, and we ate it in the cockpit as the sun was setting.  The wind subsided and all was right with our little world.

1 comment:

  1. Blue crab season is just starting. But, thanks for the suggestion. We have watched the harvest come in each day for two days now, and tonight we went to the marina's restaurant and ordered a dozen fresh from the Bay - too many. Had to pick the meat off 4 that we brought home in a box to eat later.

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