Norfolk

From Portsmouth we made the short trip over to the Norfolk Navy marina.  We needed to take care of reprovisioning, laundry and see the sights on this side of the river.  Turns out we also had some maintenance to do as well.  When we first tried to plug in our old nemesis, GFCI pedestals made us address the issue since we really wanted power for the air conditioning.  David hunted for hours, climbing in an out of small spaces trying every trick he knew to hunt down the problem.  Finally, admitting defeat he asked for help.  The marina manager hooked us up with a great guy.  Although it was a Saturday and he was way overbooked on jobs, he spent the time on the phone to listen to all David had done then give him a possible solution since he was a few weeks out on making a boat call.  Turns out it was spot on and we were back in business.  He refused a payment but we did send a thank you card with a gift enclosed.  Made our stop so much nicer.  The staff at the marina was so helpful in other ways as well making it a wonderful stop overall.  From the base, we were able to walk and bike to the base shopping complex a few times.  We also went to the Navy welcome center and took the bus tour of the base, open to military or civilians.  For security reasons, pictures are not allowed on base.  Another day, we used the bus/train system to visit downtown Norfolk.  What we saw of mass transportation in the area, it is woefully underutilized and I'm sure the source of massive tax drainage.  Good for us but bad for local taxpayers.  Anyway, we were chased by rain around downtown but still had a great time. 

Navy Marina- no security issues so I was able to photograph.

The MacArthur Memorial.  Fascinating museum of not only General MacArthur
but WWII as well. We ended up spending longer than we had originally planned. 

The Nauticus was also a wonderful museum.  It is not only Naval history but
included displays on weather, tidal waves and the environment.  It would have
been well worth another day if we had had one.

Enlarged photograph of one ship's complement of sailors.  That is a lot
of mouths to feed and bodies to clothe!

This old schooner is part of the complex.  It is used for demonstrations
and sailing schools. 

The battleship Wisconsin is also part of the complex but we didn't have time
to take the included tour.  It was tough deciding where to spend the time.

One view of Norfolk from the Nauticus.

And looking another direction.

And another view of town

And across the river back to Portsmouth.

We decided to sail on the outside, bypassing the Chesapeake for now,
and get North to cooler temps since we rarely plug in to get AC.  There is a major road across
the opening into the Atlantic and we couldn't imagine a bridge big enough or
tall enough to efficiently handle all the ship traffic.  They handled it by building a massive tunnel.
This was one end of that tunnel.

The road leading away from the tunnel.

Old Fort Comfort on the Hampton Roads.

Closeup of the fort.

Along the coast we came across several fishing boats.  This one had
its crews out in smaller boats bringing in the nets full of  the day's catch.

A close up of the boats working the nets.

Looking back at the weather system we were running from.