We have determined now that we are likely "weather wimps" as regards the temperature. We continue to complain about it only being 60 degrees, and long for the 70's and 80's that we have become accustomed to! We do know though that it won't be long and we will be experiencing hot and humid summer days on the Chesapeake, wishing that the heat would just give us a break...so we must keep our perspective, musn't we?
Top Rack marina is really just a storage facility for smaller boats that happens to have some docks that we can tie up to. We chose this spot because it is very close to the former home of our friends on ACT lll. They have bunches of friends close by, and know the area well. We have already had a blast at a karaoke night at a local Mexican restaurant last Friday, and dinner at a friends house last night (Bill and Ardis). Jeff on ACT lll is a talented musician (guitar and singing) so a bunch of our fun revolves around song and laughs...tons of laughs. Last night, Jeff and Bill entertained us for about an hour and it was terrific!
Later on today we are heading to downtown Portsmouth to drive around and sight see, and then go to a dinner/movie theater in a restored one-screen theater...it should be fun. Then tomorrow, we are taking a tour of the Navy base in Norfolk - we are really looking forward to this outing!! On Wednesday, we plan to venture a whole 10 miles up river and dock at downtown Norfolk for a couple of nights...with a tour of the battleship Wisconsin on the list of things to do.
Enough babble...some pics...
 |
| A 1949 wood hulled trawler that was parked near us at Midway Marina. It had been underwater (sunk) just 2 days prior and they were pumping all sorts of "stuff" out of it while we were there. We didn't really want to know what some of it was... |
 |
| Friendly guy just sitting on the wall near where we were waiting to get into the Great Bridge Lock. This was only about a 1 foot change in elevation, and required us to smash a bunch of boats into a medium sized lock. The bigger challenge this day had been to time 3 bridges and this lock. They all had strict opening schedules, so we had to plan our travel day carefully to make sure that we weren't sitting and waiting for an opening somewhere for an hour. |
 |
| You can't see it real clearly here, but in the lock already is a barge on the right half of the lock. There were 3 boats in front of us, and our 2 traveling companions behind us. All 6 of us squeezed into the left half of the lock for the short trip up. These are the situations where it is very comforting to be one of the smaller boats entering the lock...if these bigger boats have room, then we have plenty! |
 |
| This set-up is called a High and Dry. They basically stack boats on shelves in a big warehouse, and then pull them out with a big fork lift whenever anyone wants to use theirs. |
 |
| Here you can see the stacks of boats. Mostly these facilities are designed for boats that are 30' and less. |
 |
| And here you can see the big fork truck with a boat being washed before being stored. |
 |
| And then here we are, just across the concrete apron from the storage facility. They have room for 3 or 4 boats to have power hook-ups...the remainder of the slips are just simply slips for the boats that are transiting in and out of the storage barn. |
Of note, a milestone of sorts...just as we exited NC and entered VA (our 8th state thus far) we turned 3,000 miles on our trip odometer. It is really hard for us to believe that we have traveled this far already, as there are times when we feel like we've just started this journey. It is amazing to absorb this fact, and eye opening at how quickly the time and miles have passed. It is a good reminder for us to make sure that we take the time to absorb each experience fully. The positive side of this is that we have gained a bunch of experience and are better at what we do each day...and also we know that this east coast portion of the trip will be experienced 2 more times, so we try not to get too excitable about missing something on this first time through.
 |
| We've been seeing numerous eagles on this eastern coast...it's really breathtaking sometimes. Sandy captured this one in flight...good stuff! |
No comments:
Post a Comment