We left Saturday, August 2 and cruised up to the North Street Landing in
Portsmouth, VA at a free dock we discovered on the way up 11 years ago. We just locked up, stepped off, and
restaurants were right there. Easy.
We left at 10:30 pm, Everything is all lit up
everywhere because it is a huge Navy yard. A Portsmouth pamphlet said it’s the
deepest natural harbor in the world. The Navy Yard is in Norfolk, but it’s called
the Portsmouth Navy Yard. Portsmouth is
located across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk. Like Maine and NH the shipyard is called the
Portsmouth Navy Yard, but actually the boatyard is across the Piscataqua River
in Kittery, Maine.
There
are tons of things to look at. Fortunately
no huge boats, like aircraft
carriers were coming in or out of the channel for us to maneuver out of their
way.
All of Sunday, August 3 we motored inching up the coastline. Drew never stops moving and feels great.
quick selfie
Monday, August 4
The Iridium phone didn’t work
this sunny morning when I called the Master Gardeners Association meeting as we
past Cape May in NJ. Because of all of
the metal around like the mast, the phone kept cutting out. We are also moving, and it doesn’t like that
either. Don’t recommend one of these
phones although it was very easy to use – turn on, wait for the Iridium
registered text on the phone and dial.
So much for that – I missed my meeting and Drew is not going to use it
for his since we’ll be on land by Wednesday morning. (stopping at Parker’s Boat
Yard). The instructions for the Iridium
say to use only outside, not near any buildings or high structures, and stay in
one spot. Drew and I were thinking, how
does anyone use this thing reliably? I
guess it’s for the army in a field, not woods.
There are many articles on this device, but I wonder where they use it.
Drew called the office today but got cut off because we rocked and rolled with
the low waves.
The night and day were
incredible. Sunny, warm, light winds with very glassy seas and low wave action
all day long. It almost felt like we
weren’t moving. We finally were honored
with viewing a group of dolphins that glided next to the boat. One came right
over to the side of the boat where I was standing and did a beautiful arched jump. She/he almost winked at me. Another small,
young one played around and swam under the boat. So cute.
The nightly entertainment, the
sunset, was glorious. We never tire of
watching the red ball descend into the horizon with different colors every night – still have
never seen the green flash that some say is real just as the sun disappears at
the horizon.
After “cooking” the Stouffers dinners in the
microwave oven, before we sat down to eat, we danced to the Ipod, “The Way You
Look Tonight.” The ¼ moon cast a long,
silver rippled line to the boat like a pathway to the horizon.
Gentle seas are the way to go. We have hardly sailed once since we left because
the winds are not from the SW to help us go. The winds are from ENE hitting us
on the nose. And several times there
just wasn’t any wind. We left early to
beat Tropical Storm Bertha. We are about 50 miles off shore.
Flat ocean picture
Me in my spot.
If you want to feel time stand still get on a
boat at night with clouds covering the moon and stars. There’s no sky or land, just floating on
black. No schedule, no phone, no
Internet out this far. It’s quite
magical. I am on watch as I write this-
the boat is on auto-pilot following a track Drew put in. I glance up periodically to look around and
check the radar that tells if there are any boats headed our way. We also use the paper charts and the Ipad
app, Navionics. These are the three ways
to watch where we’re going safely.
Dolphins during the day. Tried to upload video.
Tuesday Aug.5
Continued the trip. In the middle of the night there was a large
group of bold dolphins swimming with us for about a half an hour: jumping out of
the water, under and all around the boat.
I was on watch and enjoyed their show.
What made it especially spectacular was the phosphorescence in the
water. These are tiny creatures that
light up in the water, like fireflies in the water, especially where the water is stirred up or in the wake
of the dolphins. They’d make the "pshh" sound as they breathed before diving
under. I then looked up to the star
studded sky and figured we must be in the Pleiades because there were shooting
stars about one every 5 minutes short ones, long ones, fat and thin lines
across the black night.
During the day a moth flew in
and landed on the ceiling of the bimini.
It skirted away into the ropes and stayed there until we arrived at
Parkers Boat Yard in Pocasset, and I undid the ropes to let the dinghy down. It flew away to the nearby land. Nice trip for the little thing.
There was pea soup fog that greeted us at
Block Island. For most of the day we navigated by auto-pilot, Maxsea's course and
radar to avoid other boats. The fog
horns blared every note especially through the shipping channels with the big
barges and tankers.
Fog with low visibility
All these days out our Iphones
say “No Service” even with a couple of bars as we approached land passing Long
Island, Block Island, and the Elizabeth Islands.
After the fog lifted in the afternoon as Drew
napped in the salon I cut the engine and sailed for a while on light 5 to 9 k
winds. He woke up and said, “Hey, wait. You’re
having way too much fun up there.” I
played with the wind for a while but soon returned to motoring because we
wanted to get to the mooring before 5.
We met my roommate from college, Jean and her
husband Steve for dinner in North Falmouth just as we had done in October on
our way down. The first thing Jean said
to Drew was, “You lost weight.” He
always does on the boat.
Funny to walk on land with the feeling of
motion gone after our constant balancing on the voyage. We returned from dinner about 10, dinghied
back to Shawnee, and crashed into bed.
Wednesday, August 6
Got up late in time for Drew’s
conference call with work scheduled for 10 to 3 pm on his cell phone.
Gorgeous light wind day.
Our view from the mooring - someone else's boat.
I called for the launch to bring me in. I am sitting here in a comfortable Adirondack chair
writing the blog and emailing overlooking the harbor bordered by two blue
hydrangea bushes. The plan for Thursday,
August 7 is to go 30 miles (5 hours) to Provincetown
for the night and then head west 48 miles (9 hours) to Marblehead on Friday. My
kind sister, Chris, is going to meet us and drive us back home Saturday
morning.
