Still in Norfolk

One of my main on board responsibilities is checking the weather: move or stay! There are lots of sites that predict the weather and, I have always assumed, they all pull from the same NOAA data bank and reformat the data in different ways. If they all use the same data, then all the weather forecasts should be generally analogous in outlook, which is, of course, never the case. Like the compass, what do you believe? There seem to be a lot of guys who think that writing a check to buy a boat instantly makes them master captains and PhD. meteorologists. I can only wish! My preferred method was borrowed from Rock/Paper/Scissors, the best two of three, or three of five: find some sites that seem to agree and go with the majority report. This usually works well enough until it doesn't, always an unexpected surprise; more wind, higher waves, different wind direction or becalmed. Surprise always works on the downside, rarely to our benefit. There was a whole lot more wind in the inland waters we just traveled that any forecast predicted. Now I am trying to figure out when it will be OK to leave here for Cape Charles. There is a front passing through sometime late Thursday or early Friday that will make the Chesapeake Bay a little bit frothy and the temperatures a bit cooler.

In 45 years together I have discovered that there are three things that Carol cannot do: turn off any light, close any window or lock any door. I have not yet figured out whether these non-actions are the result of emotional, psychological, physioligical or genetic barriers, probably never will. It has been interesting to see these same things play out on the boat, just in a different context: port holes remain open, even in the rain; the companionway "door" is left open even in freezing weather, air circulation don't you know; the all time favorite is the electrical panel. My job is to be the power miser, minimizing all extraneous amp hour usage so that the refrigerator does not wipe out the batteries. The power panel is pretty obvious, if red LEDs are on, circuits are live, consuming power. There are just a few patterns of the 14 lights on the panel that should be seen in different situations. Our favorite on board pastime is for me to look at the panel and see unnecessary LED's on and ask, "Why is the _______ (fill in the blank) on?" Hers is to say, "Oh, I'm done with that, I'll just turn it off." If we were to keep the boat another 5.5 years I will still be asking the same question and she will still be making the same reply, one brick wall, two heads banging against it several times a day. Sounds like a marriage.

We visited the Gen. Douglas MacArthur museum; it was sort of like reading American Caeser but with the real artifacts instead of just pictures. He was a fascinating individual, one of two men, the other being Huey Long, who, in my opinion, might have been able to disrupt the political process of this country. One a populist, the other a nationalist, both would have had to struggle against long but not impossible odds.

Some time in the 90's Chicago and had an unusual art deal. Someone had the idea of taking life sized fiberglass cows, having the cows sponsored and then the sponsors having the cows decorated by local artists in a theme that might reflect something about the sponsor. It was called: Cows on Parade. So, for instance, the Chicago Bears commissioned a cow as did museums, businesses, professional groups. The decorated cows were put on the sidewalks, in lobbies, parks, places where something that big and that colorful would surprise, even amaze. It sounds goofy but it was really pretty cool and the cows were later auctioned off for big bucks. Norfolk must have done something similar with mermaids except that the city kept the mermaids on permanent display. We must have seen at least a dozen as we walked the downtown area. This seemed too good to pass up: two red headed mermaids; in memory of Patty G, who Carol loved, and all of Patty's mermaids. Can it be anything other than a cosmic non-coincidence that Carol was color coordinated with the red headed mermaid?

Link to Pictures of Cows on Parade

Link to Pictures of Mermaids on Parade...

Carol and I lived in the area in 1971. At the time downtown Norfolk was dying commercially and the city was being hollowed out, people and businesses moving out to areas like Virginia Beach, where we lived. There is little here that I recognized or remembered; the old downtown Norfolk Sears store is long gone. I did recall the Virginian-Pilot newspaper building and the Scope arena, at the time the home to the Virginia Squires where I got to see the all time great, Dr. J, play before he went to the 76er's. What a difference four decades makes. This downtown area, at least the part which we can cover on foot, is new, vibrant, busy and interesting. There is a an unusual mix of commercial and residential properties in close proximity and it seems to work.

Having missed the blooming trees at home, I had thought that we might see the cherry trees in Washington, DC. That looks doubtful since the cherry trees are in full blossom here. I have only seen cherry trees in bloom one time, in the early 90's in Osaka. There is a walkway near the Japanese mint that I visited which is quite famous, rightly so, for its cherry blossoms, Sakura. I'm not sure quite when churches got serious about spires, probably early in the 2d millennium CE. Church spires should seem anachronistic today when buildings routinely erupt 1,000-ft. or more from the earth, but to me they don't. The best of both.

Had a bit of a walk about on Sunday, a sunny, warm, perfect day, the first in 2013 for which a t-shirt was appropriate; had a gin & tonic to celebrate and we ate dinner in the cockpit. What a nice surprise that was. The marina has generally been devoid of human activity except for us and the young man that tends the dock. Today was so nice that many people came down to their boats just to sit in the warm of the sun near the water.

Four days underway and already we have a list of things to change, repair or replace. No trip on any boat is complete without a trip to West Marine, this one being no exception. On Monday Carol wanted to rent a car for a trip there as well as to the Portsmouth side of the river, so we did. Weather-wise it looks like we will be unable to leave until some time this weekend. Norfolk had not been a part of the trip, a destination; it was simply a gateway to the Chesapeake Bay through which we had to pass. It looks like we will be doing the lemon/lemonade thing and finding ways to enjoy the sojourn here. This is where Carol is at her best, she being an irrepressible, unapologetic, incurable optimist able to find the good in a glass that is 2% full, especially if the 2% includes restaurants and dining out; I tend to get grumpy when the glass is 2% empty.

Got to West Marine, got what we needed, for this stop, anyway. We decided to drive to the Pembroke area where once we lived and worked. The apartments, built in about 1960, looked better than they did when we lived there. The Sears store, where I worked, also built in about 1960, not so great. It looked like a two tone, deserted warehouse, a sad sight to me. It was interesting all the various memories that came back to us both; things that we would never have recalled without the evocative side trip. It was kind of fun sharing that history. Carol wanted to go to the beach, a trip we had made on bicycles several times with 4 year old Sean loaded in a seat on the back of my bike, well before the time when helmets were required for anyone. Got there and had a ride on a ferris wheel, then walked to the boardwalk. We decided to use the new iPhone for direction to get to a place to make a minor repair to our canvas. The first time Apple maps put us closer to our house than to Mike's Marine Canvas. The second attempt at least got us into the same area code, but not the same zip code. Google Maps .... dead on. All the criticism I have read about Apple's mapping software is correct; it's junk.

We made it to Portsmouth on Tuesday, taking the ferry across the river. Got another good look at the work being done in the yards.

It's hard to tell these days what purpose a USN ship serves; is it part of the tiger's tooth or the tiger's tale? Things used to be simpler; if a ship had a lot of 16-in. guns it was a battleship; a bunch of 8-in. guns and it was a cruiser; a few 5-in. guns and it was a destroyer. Subs and carriers were self explanatory and everything else was about logistics, moving stuff across the water. The ship in the tent in the background must be some sort of carrier; it has a sign about jet blast and rotor wash. The one in front looks like something a precocious 4-year old would have built with Lego blocks; what is with the two towers? On the far right, hard to see, are several ship's bows that look like they belong to predators not cargo carriers.

Right at the ferry disembark pier was the fresnel lens from a decommissioned light house. It was not lighted, of course, but it was turning and the lens acted like prism which I found fascinating. Portsmouth was pretty interesting, many old churches, pre-1800's with cemeteries having similarly old head stones. There is also an "old town" covering several square blocks. It is not as big and dense as Charleston's but it covered a larger span of years with houses into the early 1900's. It was a good visit, worth more time than we were able to give it.

The past several days have just been delightful, closer to summer than Spring. T-shirts during the day; heat off at night. It's been sunny enough to get Carol back into her SPF 50 mode, hanging towels in the cockpit to keep out the sun and, of course, buying new sun hats. Given her history it is hard to take issue with any of this.

So, we have a sort of plan. I had thought to anchor in Willoughby Bay and to leave from there. The coming weather makes that a bad idea. Leaving from here adds almost 12 nm to the crossing, too many for one day. On Wednesday we'll switch marinas to one that is outside the main harbor with a straight shot across the mouth of the Bay to Cape Charles. We hope to leave on Saturday when/if the weather has settled down.