Random thoughts and photos

I’ve got a bunch of unrelated photos to share –

This was part of an exhibit at Nauticus, in Norfolk. Modern technology!
Note how far it is to Prime Meridian
Our friends took this shot of our boat as we were going through a lock together- that’s me up on the bow trying to lasso one of those short posts.
One of our favorite lines is “next boat, bigger boat”. The next boat will have a non-human dishwasher, so no more stacks of dishes draining.
Mallards! We must be getting further north.
Who wouldn’t want a little Toe Jam on their toast – it’s delicious!
We’ve been having issues with our air conditioning units in the main salon shutting down. It turns out this marina is loaded with little tiny jellyfish which get sucked into the A/C strainer, causing the units to shut down. Rich has cleaned them out twice already today – ugh. They turn into a gelatinous glob in the bottom of the strainer.
When he dumped it into the water, it looked like cubes of clear gelatin that quickly sunk to the bottom.
About 11 this morning at least 6 cigarette boats pulled into slips beside us and headed to the restaurant for lunch. I’m sure the people on them are very nice, but I hate those boats. They’re incredibly loud and serve no purpose as far as I can tell except to go very fast and be very loud.
We had lunch today at the Barking Dog, a local hot dog place. This sign was by the entrance and I couldn’t resist taking a photo of it.
Another beautiful sunset!

Changes in plans

We’ve decided there’s too much to see in the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding areas to rush through it and try to get back to Michigan by mid-October, so we’re slowing down and are going to spend the rest of the summer and early fall here. We’ll leave the boat over the winter around Baltimore or Annapolis and resume traveling up the east coast next spring.

So last Wednesday we traveled all of 15 miles to Hampton VA to a marina recommended by friends. We had our choice of slips, so we got one just 4 slips away from the parking lot. There was no wind and no current as we backed into the slip – what a pleasant change from the last few marinas! And there is a restaurant on the other side of the parking lot with excellent she crab soup – score, score, and score!🙌🏻

I noticed some sailboats going past our marina that night – there were at least 8 that went by and it looked like they were racing. Note the bell tower and buildings on the other side of the water – I’ll have more about them later.

Enterprise picked us up Thursday morning in a very new Nissan Altima, and we were off to do some shopping. Unfortunately we couldn’t find several things we wanted, so it was Amazon to the rescue. We will have packages waiting for us at our next stop – that’s always exciting!

Friday we went to colonial Williamsburg, which is less than an hour from our marina. We were able to see about half of it and will go back tomorrow (Sunday) to see more of it. I realized as we were driving back that I took no photos! We toured the governor’s palace and learned that rooms painted green were an indication that you had money, because green paint was expensive and required repainting every couple of years. We talked with a shoe cobbler and got to handle several types of shoes, watched a woman using a spinning wheel, who explained in great detail the whole process, and talked to a cooper about the rings they used to hold barrels together. We toured the George Wythe house and learned how he was a mentor for Thomas Jefferson, as well as many other prominent figures. I could go on, but you get the idea of how much history there is to witness there.

We had lunch in an old tavern there, then headed back to the visitors’ center where we thought we could walk past an old plantation. Thirty minutes later we had made a complete circle and no sight of a plantation. We asked a docent about it and were told it wasn’t there anymore, in spite of what the brochure and map said. Needless to say, we were not happy to hear that.

Note the “feels like” temp – that’s why we were so unhappy about walking for 30 minutes for nothing. And then when we got back to the parking lot, we couldn’t remember which row our car was in. So we wandered around for another 10 minutes in the heat before we finally found it (the beep you normally hear when you hit the key fob had been turned off, so we couldn’t just listen for that ☹️).

Remember the bell tower and buildings I pointed out in an earlier photo? We were curious what they were so I looked at google map and discovered they are on the campus of Hampton University. Since neither of us had heard of it, we googled it and found it to be a fascinating story. It was founded in 1868 by General Samuel Chapman Armstrong as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute for recently emancipated slaves. Booker T. Washington was one of the first students here.

We decided we needed to check out the museum and the Emancipation Oak, so this afternoon we crossed the river and explored. The bell tower is part of Memorial Chapel (1886), has 12 bells, and tolls on the hour. If we’re on the fly ridge we can hear it. The building just to the right of the bell tower is the Academy Building(1881). The museum on campus was founded at the same time as the school because Armstrong thought a good education trained the head, the hand, and the heart – he called the museum the curiosity room where students could see and touch artifacts from around the world. Today the museum is the oldest African American museum in the US, and houses 10,000 objects from traditional African art, to Native American art, to modern African American fine arts.

The front of the museum. It was originally the library, but when a new library was built in 1997, the museum was moved into that space. Unfortunately no photos are allowed inside the building, so once again you will have to take my word that it was amazing.
The Emancipation Oak is on the edge of the campus and is the site where, in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was read to the people of Hampton. This was the first Southern reading of the proclamation. The tree spans 98 feet in diameter – its branches touch the ground on both edges in this photo!
This shot gives you a better idea of how large this tree is. It’s been cited by the National Geographic Society as one of the ten great trees in the world. And we would never have known about it or seen it if we hadn’t stopped at this particular marina.

We’re becoming tourists!

We’ve been discovering Portsmouth and a little bit of Norfolk in the past few days. Our marina is just a few blocks from Old Towne Portsmouth and the ferry that goes across the Elizabeth River to Norfolk, so we’ve done a lot of walking since we got here.

Old Towne has lots of houses built in the early 1800s – and of course lots of statues.

This one was to honor Spanish War veterans.
This is the founder of Portsmouth, February 27, 1752.
Virginia was part of the Confederacy, so this is to honor the Confederate dead.
Many of the houses have plaques describing who built the house.
At some point the owners of this house wanted to add a third floor, but instead of building on top of the second floor, they raised the second floor to make it the third floor, and built a new second floor!
The wall at the top of this building was built to make it look taller – and make it the same height as the building next door. Even in the 1700s and 1800s it was important to keep up with the Jones!
The bumpout on this building was originally just one story high and housed the “outhouse “. It was an “inside” privy.
Court Street Baptist Church, established in1789. This is the third building to sit on this site. Black members of this church held services in the basement of this church until May, 1865, when 318 members of the congregation founded their own church.
St. Paul Catholic Church – yet another really old building.
Monumental United Methodist Church had a fire at the top of the steeple so now they’re rebuilding it. Those are men at the top, building scaffolding so the actual rebuilding can be done. There isn’t enough money in the world to get me up there doing what those men were doing!
Trinity Episcopal Church – this was built in 1762 and is still serving Episcopalian congregants.
This is the ferry we took across the Elizabeth River to Norfolk on Sunday.

Sunday we took a 2 hour naval base cruise, followed by a visit to Nauticus, a maritime themed science center and museum, and a visit to the USS Wisconsin which is docked at Nauticus. The information about all the destroyers, battleships, and subs was so interesting – and so overwhelming!

Nauticus – and USS Wisconsin in the background as seen from our cruise.
A partial view of the USS Wisconsin. It was built in 1944, was in service until early 1990s, then put back into service during Desert Storm. It’s not as large as many of the newer ships, but it’s still almost 3 football fields long!
There are 2 submarines in the upper left corner – can you see them? They remind me of giant manatees.
Just one of many we went past.
Any time a ship has work done on it, it must go through a demagnetization. This is where it takes place for ships in this area. I have no idea how it’s done or how they get those giant ships through here, but the guide told us this, so it must be true.
This is the Portsmouth lightship. It served as a mobile lighthouse from 1916 to 1964. It was later moved to a spot along the river and is now a museum. I had never heard of lightships until I saw this!

Monday was spent doing laundry, then having dinner at a unique restaurant called “STILL”. It’s subterranean and is meant to be like an old speakeasy. The food is tapas/share and was delicious! And there were 3 pages of old time cocktails – quite tasty.

You can’t see it in this photo, but the door had a small sliding panel where someone inside could look out to ask for the password. Fortunately we didn’t need a password to get in.
Ducks behind our boat at sunset.
I love the reflection of the sun off the clouds and water – how can you not love sunsets?

Portsmouth VA

Tuesday we headed to Coinjock NC, where we spent one night. Coinjock’s claim to fame is 32 oz. prime rib at the restaurant which is at the marina. We were able to get a 16 oz. which we split – and it was one of the best prime ribs we’ve had in a long time.

As soon as we had ordered our dinner our server brought us freshly made potato chips with ranch dipping sauce. They were so good, but we couldn’t begin to finish them, so we got a doggie bag for them and enjoyed them the next day.
They had really interesting desserts, with the option of getting samplers of 3 or 5 desserts. We couldn’t resist that, so we did a sampler of raw apple cake, Florida pie, and hummingbird cake. They were so good that there wasn’t even a crumb to take a picture of.

Wednesday we got to Chesapeake VA, where we caught up with some friends who have finished the loop and are headed up to Maine for the summer.

There were several restaurants nearby, so we walked to an Italian restaurant with our friends. This sign was by the road to the restaurant.
Lasagna and veal piccata – so good!

Today we headed to Portsmouth VA, just 12 miles away, but it took 2 hours 15 minutes to get there. The day began with a drawbridge and a lock, followed by slow going through industrial areas and a railroad drawbridge that was down. We had to wait for the train to go across and then the bridge SLOWLY went up. We finally made it to the marina and then had to get into our slip with a 15-20 knot crosswind. Thankfully there were 2 dockhands to catch lines for us and help us get tied up.

This reminded us of going down the Illinois River.
We have no idea what the cranes are used for, but they were huge!
The railroad bridge that we had to wait for.
Another railroad bridge – this one was up. I’m not sure how high it was, but you can get some idea by looking at the boat underneath.
We passed by some Navy vessels being worked on. This is a huge Navy area so there are all sorts of Navy yards around us.
This evening we noticed this large yacht just beyond our marina. We thought it was anchored out there, but then I noticed towboat US trying to pull it. We’re not sure if it ran aground or had mechanical issues, but it took almost half an hour to get it moving and towed to the mega dock at the marina.

It’s hot again!

Our second day at Dowry Creek was spent doing laundry, catching up on emails, and staying inside to keep cool. The temps have heated up again!

Laundry facilities vary greatly! This laundry room had two nice washers and dryers and a washer and dryer that looked like they were hurricane survivors. They were all free, so it’s hard to complain because they all worked.
We borrowed the courtesy car to go into Belhaven for dinner and were surprised to see it’s a Mercedes! It had 110,000 miles on it, typical mileage for courtesy cars, but much more classy than the typical car we normally get. There’s only one place in town to get dinner on a Sunday night – the Tavern at Jack’s Neck. We’re not sure why it is called a tavern because it’s a very nice restaurant.
On the drive from the marina to Belhaven we passed farmland that reminded us of the Midwest.
Rich hates roundabouts but even in rural North Carolina there are roundabouts.
Do you see a bear or an alligator? Maybe a deer? No? Neither did we. This area is supposed to have all of those creatures, but none were to be seen as we went through this canal.
No more palm trees, just an area of burned out trees and a duck blind.
A barge! We passed two of them today. It seems like it’s been months since we’ve seen tows.
We arrived at Alligator River Marina just after noon today – this is the view from the back of our boat. Not fancy, but there’s a small cafe there so we were able to get some lunch – cooked to order bacon cheeseburger for Rich and a grilled cheese for me – comfort food. And it’s known for its fried chicken so Rich got us some for dinner tonight. It lived up to its reputation!
This is the view from the front of our boat. That’s the Alligator River out there.
Almost sunset. I love the way the light reflects off the water.

Open water at last!

We left Harbour Village Marina Thursday morning and headed to Beaufort NC. As I mentioned earlier, we passed by Camp Lejuene on our way there. I called early that morning to see if there would be live fire – they close the ICW when there is live fire! Fortunately there was nothing scheduled for that day.

I guess we won’t be going ashore here!
Looks like this is what they fire at across the ICW.

We arrived at Homer Smith Marina in Beaufort in the early afternoon. The marina is just 3 blocks from the main street with lots of restaurants and shops. The whole area is an historic district with houses dating back to the early 1800s – really cool area! The main street reminded us of Saugatuck. I realized after we got back to the boat that I didn’t take any photos ☹️

We had dinner at a restaurant that reminded us of Everyday People Cafe in Saugatuck. This was Rich’s blackened grouper.
And this was my scallop special – quite tasty!
The next day we had lunch at a waterfront restaurant – this was the view from our table.
We got the courtesy car and did some provisioning at the local Piggly Wiggly. These are all retro and craft sodas!
We discovered that there was a big fishing tournament going on all week long. Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, based in Morehead City, which is just across the water from Beaufort, had 185 boats registered. Fishing boats were in all of the marinas, including this one which was just across from our boat. We heard on the news tonight that the top prize in the tournament was $800,000!
Sunset from our boat in Beaufort.

We left Beaufort at 7:30 this morning to take advantage of high tide, traveled 70 miles and arrived at Dowry Creek Marina 6 hours later. Most of the trip was on wide open water – what a nice change from narrow channels!

Pamlico Sound
Even in relatively open waters there are markers for the ICW.
In front of the building on the left is a heated pool – we plan to do some swimming tomorrow.
Sunset at Dowry Creek
And full moon over the ICW as seen from the bow of our boat.

Continuing north

We finally left Charleston Tuesday, June 4, and made it to Georgetown SC for one night (more about Georgetown in photos). As we were getting back on the ICW from the Georgetown marina Wednesday morning we were stopped by a Coast Guard boat. Two men boarded our boat to do a routine safety check. We have been very diligent about making sure we have all the safety equipment and documentation needed, so they were done in 10 minutes and we passed with flying colors. They even said our engine room was cleaner than theirs!

Then it was on to a marina on the south end of Myrtle Beach for one night with not much there except a great goodie bag when we checked in. There WAS an alligator behind a boat along the channel wall the next morning, but I wasn’t able to get a photo of it, so you’ll have to take my word for it😊

We then spent two nights at Myrtle Beach Yacht Club, which is actually in Little River SC. We were given a pass to the Officers Club, a private restaurant above the marina office, and had great wings there. We have been eating so much seafood that wings were a real treat. A man came in while we were there and asked how much membership cost. Our server said it was 35. He asked 35 hundred? She said no, $35. He asked per month? She said no, for a year. There’s obviously some reason they have to have a membership fee, but it is just a token amount.

It was on to two nights in Southport NC then. Southport is a very interesting town – a cross between an old town with great old houses and a fishing town. Several movies, as well as the TV series Dawson’s Creek, have used Southport for shooting locales.

We have spent the last three days at Harbour Village Marina in Hampstead NC because of weather. No restaurants here, but we got pizza delivered last night from a local pizza place – New York style cut into big wedges you could fold in half to eat. Tomorrow we head to Beaufort NC, passing Camp Lejuene on the way. We’ve seen military helicopters and jets flying over the marina the past three days.

Passing Fort Sumter on our way out of Charleston.
We passed 4 of these US Army vessels. We’re not sure where they were headed but they only had 3-4 men on each.
A plaque along the water’s edge.
We had lunch in Georgetown at a restaurant that had been an old fishing shack over the water. There was a boardwalk over the water’s edge and I finally got to see an alligator! We were amazed at how the turtles swam right up to the alligator and hung out like they were good friends.
We went through a narrow 2 mile stretch called “the rock pile” because they had to blast through rock to create the ICW here. You can barely see the rock because we came through close to high tide, but at low tide there are obvious rock walls on both sides. The channel is so narrow that if a tow is coming through in the other direction you have to wait until it passes so you don’t get pushed into the rock wall.
Walking down this street in Southport you will find several restaurants along the waterfront. The blue buildings are all part of a restaurant called fishy fishy – can you guess what kind of food they serve?
If you didn’t want to eat in a restaurant, you could always get fresh seafood to cook on your own. The shrimp came from the boat in the background.
Passing Wrightsville Beach we saw this unique way of marking shoaling.

Good cell service and fast wifi

It’s so easy to take good cell service and fast WiFi for granted when you have a permanent “dirt” home in a city. Unfortunately those things can be hard to find in a marina, even when it’s in a large city. All the marinas say free WiFi, but they neglect to tell you it’s dialup speed. And ATT doesn’t seem to have much of a presence along the Georgia and Carolinas coast. Thus, I haven’t been able to post anything for a couple of weeks. Amazingly, we’re in a marina with no goods or services nearby, but their WiFi is fast and I have 4 bars for cell service!

We arrived in Charleston May 28 and intended to stay 3 nights, but ended up there 7 nights. Soon after we arrived there we found out that the head of the urology program when Rich was in residency had died and his funeral was going to be in Richmond VA on June 1. We were able to leave our boat at the marina for a longer time, so we rented a car and drove to Richmond on Friday, went to the funeral on Saturday, and drove back to Charleston on Sunday. 800 miles in 3 days by car vs. an average of 50 miles per day by boat- what a difference!

On our first day in Charleston we took a carriage tour of the historic part of the city. It was in the 90s already at 11:15 when our ride started, so instead of horses we had mules. Apparently they are much more tolerant of the heat. These two are named and are on their third “retirement”. Every time they take them to the farm to retire them, they turn around and try to get back into the trailer to go back to the city to work.
When one of the mules or horses pees on the street, the driver drops one of these markers so the people who clean the streets all day can wash it down with a special solution so it won’t smell. The animals wear special bags to catch their solid waste. When they come back to the barn after each tour, there is someone there who removes the bag and puts on a clean one. It’s literally a shitty job.😊
One of many church steeples in Charleston. It’s called the Holy City because of the large number of churches. Until last year there was a city ordinance that no building could be built in Charleston that was taller than the tallest steeple. They changed that because they were running out of room to build and wanted to be able to build up.
By the white sign is a gate that was part of a Quaker cemetary in the early 1700s. The Quakers were early settlers but most left because they found the city to be too decadent.
The black circles on the side of the building between the first and second floors are called earthquake bolts. After the great earthquake of 1886 buildings that were still standing had long iron rods inserted between floors to reinforce and stabilize them. The ends were covered with a variety of decorative caps/bolts.
This fence was in front of a house owned by a very prominent man who had many slaves. The top of the fence had spikes, not to keep the slaves in, but to keep others out during a time of slave rebellions.
This market is about four blocks long and has all kinds of local crafts and foods. What I found really amazing was that the vendors had to remove everything at the end of the day, and then return the next morning to set it all up again.
We walked to the rental car company from downtown Charleston and passed many interesting places. This was a small square next to a very old fire station.
This is the artesian well mentioned in the previous photo. You can still get water from it.
This is Trinity United Methodist Church, founded in 1791. The architecture in this city is amazing!
I love what the bottom of their sign says.
Another example of very interesting architecture. What was especially amazing about this building is that the windows were the same on the sides as the windows on the front.
This is for my brother who served on a submarine for many years. The next picture explains what it is.
This is outside the Charleston Museum. It was powered by men cranking a long shaft connected to a propeller at the stern. I can’t imagine too many men surviving this.
Circular Congregational Church, built in 1890, of bricks from the original church which was destroyed by fire in 1861. The congregation was co-founded 1680-1685 by English Congregationalists, Scots Presbyterians, and French Huguenots. Their meeting house is where this church now stands. There is a cemetary all around the church. Our guide said there are two headstones, both with no names, but with humorous epitaphs. We looked for them, but couldn’t find them. One is supposed to say “I thought it would work”and the other “I told you I was sick”.
If you are able to expand the photo you will see these are for two babies who died in the early 1700s. There were a lot of headstones for babies, toddlers, and young mothers.
I’m not sure why there is a skull and crossbones as well as an angel on this one.
Our last night in Charleston we had dinner at Hyman’s Seafood. The building started out as a wholesale dry goods store. The history is too long to put in here but if you google hymans charleston you can read all about it – very interesting! It became a restaurant in 1987 and has had scores of famous people eat there. They have put plaques on tables so you can see who ate at your table. This was our table.
This was also on our table. Rep. Clyburn is currently House Majority Whip.
Our table was on the second floor overlooking the street. The building across the street looks old, but isn’t. I love the way the new buildings blend in with the old.
There are two small boats that can come to your slip to pump out your holding tanks. I love their sense of humor!
Boat number two