Month: July 2021

And just like that, we ditched the notion of taking the Dismal Swamp route.  Again.  Happy Ours went through it on Saturday and reported places with less than four feet of water.  Plus more stumps and such.  We generally think of hull and running gear damage the way Oscar thinks of generic kibble.  It’s all good though, because we like Coinjock.  

As for Albemarle Plantation?  Beautiful place.

Beautiful, but for us it kind of peaked with the golf cart, which we used to drive around and look at every house in the place.  Oscar may appear uncomfortable, but we swear that’s how he sits.

Of course, the twenty-five-knot gusts that drove the waves that smacked us against the fixed dock all Saturday night didn’t help.  Fixed docks are to boats as rap music is to polite society.  But we fendered up, and by Monday the wind was gone, replaced by drizzle.

On the positive side, Monday also was cool.  73°.  The first day we’ve been aboard Tumbleweed without running the air conditioners.  Dana even put on a long-sleeve shirt.

It might’ve helped if we’d eaten at The Clubhouse, but a series of miscalculations on our part cost us the opportunity.  All we saw was the outside.

It also probably would’ve helped if we were golfers who could take advantage of the beautiful courses.  But we’re not golfers.  One of us has no use for it at all.  The other one of us appreciates the game almost exclusively because it gave us Caddyshack, although negative points must be awarded for the blight on humanity that is Caddyshack II.  Jackie Mason was to comedy what Ed Kemper was to coeds.

Tuesday morning, we headed for Coinjock, which meant nearly four hours of the Albemarle Sound.

The  Sound started off rougher than expected, but turned decent fairly quickly.  A nice 75°.  However, we’ll remember it more for the tragedy than the weather.

The initial news reports suggested that a helicopter had crashed pretty close to the Alligator River Marina (where we stayed Friday night), the Coast Guard had responded, and the Coast Guard had recovered some debris but still was searching for two missing guys.  All true, but from our vantage point not completely truthful.

Apparently some time Monday night, someone called in a report that the helicopter carrying their friends had gone down at the mouth of the Alligator River.  At 8 Tuesday morning, we turned on our VHF radio to hear Coast Guard Sector North Carolina broadcast a notice that a dark blue helicopter—tail number N4529J (stock photo below)—may have crashed, and asked boaters in the Albemarle Sound to keep an eye out for anything of related interest.  No search and rescue operation.  No sense of urgency.

We pulled out at about 8:30, ten miles from the purported crash site.  An hour or so later, a crabber named Brian radioed that he had pulled a backpack out of the water.   Although this all was over the VHF channel monitored by every boater with a marine radio on the East Coast, the Coast Guard had him read and spell the name on a passport that was in the backpack.  We thought this incredibly poor form.  Dana undoubtedly wasn’t the only person to track the guy down on Google.

At least then the Coast Guard finally sent a boat and a helicopter.  However, they all were using that same channel 16, and redundantly talking over each other when communicating with the helpful boaters who actually were the ones to find debris.  In one particular galling instance of unnecessary stupidity, a dude on a sailboat fairly near ground zero reported that he had just passed a “dark blue curved piece of shiny metal, approximately one meter by two meters.” Now that sort of thing doesn’t float by every day.  We’ve been cruising some thirteen-thousand miles or so, and never have seen anything like that.  And yet before taking him seriously, the Coast Guard dispatcher literally asked “Did it look like it might have come from a helicopter?”  We wanted to scream at him.

In this blog we’ve made light of other distress situations, mostly because as far as we know they’ve all ended well.  This is the first time the radio drama has involved fatalities.  There’s nothing humorous to be mined here.  It seems likely that an earlier, more aggressive, and less confused response wouldn’t have changed the outcome in this case, but next time it might.  Very sobering stuff.

Anyway, on up to Coinjock, where a bunch of other boats lined up behind us.

Although it may have looked like a typical night during the Looper migration, we sadly had the only AGLCA burgee.  Since we obviously were docked with losers (except for the nice couple aboard Reel Grace with two dogs sharing our track to New York), we stayed at home and watched another absurd episode of Suits.  Seriously, every lawyer on that show should be seeking redemption at Shawshank.

This morning the clock struck time to leave North Carolina.  We pulled off Coinjock into a great cruising day.  Not too hot.  No wind.  No current.  No crab pots.  As smooth as Jimmy Chitwood’s set shot.

The most exciting thing about the fours hours up to Atlantic Yacht Basin was watching our blue dot creep up to the state line.  Which for the record was not at all exciting.

We hit the two swing bridges—including that weird one where not one but two sections of road rotate out of the way—without more than a few minor speed adjustments.

Then we tied up at AYB in time for a late lunch and a post-nap quick drone flight.*

Until today, we’d planned to pop over to Cape Charles, then back to Deltaville for some minor service items at ZMI.  Our plans mostly are weather dependent, however, and the weather outlook changes more frequently than Fred called Lamont “big dummy.”  So now we’re heading to Norfolk for a couple of days before Deltaville, instead of crossing the Chesapeake.

AUTHORS’ NOTE:  We understand that employing multiple ridiculous analogies pushes the limits of literary decency, and we realize that this post is littered with analogies the same way the “train station” is littered with the bodies of people foolish enough to cross John Dutton.  We needed to entertain ourselves, however, and we’ll live with the consequences.  The other point is that we’re anxious for Yellowstone to come back around.  No way everybody really died at the end of Season Three.

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*If anyone gives us an easy way to keep WordPress from degrading our photos—which are crystal clear until uploaded to the blog—we’ll bestow upon him or her the first ever Golden Tumbleweed, a completely virtual and completely worthless award that we just made up.

Thursday morning was such a glorious day for a short day of cruising, it’s a shame we wasted it on a short day of cruising.

Because the ten miles up to Norfolk promised to be easy, Dana got a nice run in, during which she discovered a small battlefield park that Doug then walked to at a much more civilized pace.

We couldn’t verify it ourselves, but one of the many informational signs claimed that The Battle of Great Bridge was the first land battle in which the colonial upstarts defeated the mighty British.  If that were true we’d expect something more prominent here.  Indeed, the first artillery piece to fire a shot in the battle now is in front of some silly county building in Ohio, which seems like an odd place if that cannon literally started the string of successes that led to us using dollars instead of euros.  However, at a minimum a band of gutsy farmers beat back the redcoats and sent Royal Governor Lord Dunmore scuttling home to Mother England.  Pretty cool little place.

Fortunately, we had no battle over either The Great Bridge—which lifted for us right on time—or The Great Bridge Lock, which likely is the last lock we’ll see until the Federal Lock in Troy, New York.

Of course, the Dismal Swamp sign mocked us yet again.  Grrrrr.

Although the distance we were traveling may have been short, the time it took not so much.  Because the @#!%ing Norfolk Railroad Bridge Number 7 lowered just before we reached it.  Both times through here we’ve been stopped, for two trains each time.  And those trains are slow.  And the bridge operator is unwilling to raise the bridge until the last train across reaches Atlanta.  We left AYB planning a thirty-minute buffer for Dana’s noon conference call, but that and more was eaten up by what now officially is our least favorite bridge in the world.

Finally, however, we busted on up the Elizabeth River through the naval shipyards.  This part we like.

Yup, this is cool stuff.  Like the USS George H.W. Bush, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

Although our spot at Waterside Marina looks serene enough, we spent most of Thursday afternoon and evening wrangling electrical issues.  Not ours, but the marina’s.  According to the dockhands, shortly after our arrival the main electrical service entrance started smoking, which isn’t a good thing.  So they shut down the docks, all of which we discovered only after returning from lunch to find our boat involuntarily off the grid.  Which meant no air conditioning despite the extent to which people from Arizona rely upon it.  “The electrician will be here at 6:30,” they said at 2:30 just as the day was heating up.   A combo of the generator and some luck got us through until we got power back, however, and we did like our spot.

Interesting side note.  Remember Lord Dunmore from ten miles and a few paragraphs ago?  The marina WiFi password is dunmore1.  Can’t be a coincidence.  We’re debating whether to notify the FBI that there’s a Tory in the Waterside IT department.

Later Thursday evening, the awkwardly-named Perseus^³ showed up.  Now this is a damn big sloop.  Nearly two hundred feet long.  Even bigger than her sister ship Parsifal III, which we would know all about if we watched that trashy Bravo show Below Deck where all the crew sleep with each other and then regret it, but we don’t watch trashy shows like that.  Except sometimes.

We know it’s a crappy picture, but the Captain had the temerity to leave Saturday morning without warning us to get our camera ready for a better one.

Here’s something you don’t see every day.  A battleship bow-in to a city street.  It almost looks like that time Jack Colton pulled his sailboat through Manhattan to woo Joan Wilder, except much bigger.  It’s the USS Wisconsin in case anyone wonders.

Friday one of us slept all day in his fuzzy cat-sized bed, one of us hiked around town and got a pedicure, and one of us visited the MacArther Memorial.  The former two failed to take any worthwhile notes or photos, but the museum was awesome.

For anybody interested in military history, this is a must-stop stop.  Full of memorabilia and interesting details of the great General’s career, some well-known and some obscure.  Like the fact that his mother got an apartment to be near him at West Point.  If that doesn’t get you hazed, nothing will.

According to the half-hour video, MacArthur almost single-handedly won WWII for the good guys.

Not to undermine MacArthur’s very significant contributions, but we’ve also been to the Nimitz museum in Fredericksburg, Texas, where they’re pretty sure local boy Admiral Chet deserves most of the glory.  Others might point to Fat Man and Little Boy (the atomic bombs not the Paul Newman bomb).  We think the outcome is all that matters, of course, because the outcome is all that matters.  The memorial and museum and marble coffin lids were awesome though.

But wait!  There’s more!  In addition to almost innumerable plaudits, awards, and medals, the Five-Star General has his name right there on the mall.  Fredericksburg doesn’t even have a Dillards, or Spencer Gifts, or Orange Julius, which pretty much settles any debate.

What Norfolk has in boats and heroes, unfortunately, it lacks in pickleball.  Just outside the back of the mall on what looks to be an abandoned parking lot we did find painted courts, but sadly we’re not traveling with our own nets or with opponents so no pickleball for us.

Friday night the marina filled up, which mostly was ok but we could’ve done without the dude who blocked our view of the concert stage when the somewhat decent cover band started playing.

We really like Norfolk, but somewhat ironically we might like leaving Norfolk even more.  Because heading north we get to pass the Norfolk Naval Base.  It’s not quite as jammed as Pearl Harbor, but it’s still dang awesome.

Yup, that’s USS Ramage—aka Warship 61–the guided-missile destroyer which may have frightened us into submission last time through but this time they had the good sense to stay out of our way.

Next up, USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest military vessel in the world.  Nearly five thousand sailors and pilots and whatnots live aboard when underway.  With two nuclear reactors she can cruise at thirty knots continuously until about 2050, except with a crew that size they probably need to stop for lots of pump-outs.

And then next door we have another Nimitz-class carrier, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Her claim to fame is the involuntary record-setting 205 days at sea, when the Navy decided that at least one ship should remain Covid free.  True story.

It’s cool to see these boats lined up in their slips, but we’d really like to see one underway.  Oh well, maybe next time.  Hey wait!  That’s a Navy Security Vessel on the radio, warning that a carrier is returning from sea and that everybody should get the hell out of her way.  He didn’t use those exact terms but we took it that way, and when he later specifically asked us—and by “asked us” we mean told us—to get Tumbleweed to the other side of the green channel marker, we obliged.  Those dudes had mounted machine guns.

Dana got some good shots of USS Harry S Truman as we slid past anyway.

Doug wanted to ask for a fly-by on behalf of Ghost Rider, based on the assumptions that (1) they’ve all seen Top Gun and (2) they’ve got a sense of humor.  But again, those dudes had machine guns.  Reel Grace was following us up to Deltaville and Tim took the money shot as we approached.  Because of the distance it’s kind of hard to tell, but we’re pretty sure all those people on the flight deck are lined up trying to get good photos of Tumbleweed.

Another startling coincidence.  Reel Grace used to be George and Meg’s Viridian, which we first met in Rock Hall the same life-changing day we met Second Wave.  We last saw her as Viridian—with a for sale sign—at Grand Harbor on Pickwick Lake.  Small world.

Anyway, done with Norfolk means done with the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.  Back out on the Chesapeake Bay for the next couple of weeks or so.  More specifically for now, back to Deltaville, like a buzzard that keeps returning to an armadillo that’s been smushed by a truck.  For anyone who isn’t up to date, until four years ago we’d never even heard of this place.  Then we were stuck here in the freezing rain for three weeks in 2018.  Then at the end of the Loop we were stuck here again for a few days, but at least we had Brent and Karen along for emotional support.  Then last year we brought Misty Pearl back down to stage for sale, although that was a business trip so no blog posts to prove it.

It’s not that there’s much too wrong with Deltaville, it’s just that there’s not much to Deltaville.  And what little there is isn’t close to the marinas.  But we arrived in time for a grocery run in the courtesy car—yes, the engine warning light was on, because that’s in the courtesy car regulations—and docktails at sunset with Tim and Jen.

Sunday brought Barry and Robin from Crossroads, which used to be our sister Selene 43 but then we broke up the family and shacked up with another family.  Barry is an electronics whiz and is helping with a few things.  Great to catch up.

Tomorrow will be our second shortest cruising day in history, behind only that time Misty Pearl and Second Wave had to move slips in Clayton and Brent still celebrated with his post-docking Shiner Bock.  Zimmerman Marine is about a hundred yards away.  We’re leaving Tumbleweed over there for minor work and heading to the mountains.