6/13/2010 PORTSMOUTH TO YORK

DICK AND CHERYL READY TO GO

Dick and Cheryl left us by 8:30 this morning and Dan and I stuffed the marina’s washers before walking to breakfast with Richard and Charlene. By some strange stroke of fate, we ended up in a nice restaurant with a huge screen TV that we were able to monopolize for the finals tennis match at Queen’s Club in London. Go Sam Querrey!! Way to take the title on grass in England! Nice show.

When we got back to Quest for casting off, we found a stealth ship had been moved to a spot near the USS New York. How’s this for an impressive view?

WOWSERS!

As we wove our way out the Elizabeth River from Portsmouth and Norfolk, we were amazed at the endless number of our country’ ships lining the shores. I had no idea of the magnitude. The HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier wowed us with her massiveness and sleek air planes. As we rounded her bow we got to see some kind of ceremony with the men all decked out in white.

SHIP AFTER SHIP AFTER SHIP-----

HMS ARK ROYAL

READY?

DRESS SHORTS? WONDER WHAT'S HAPPENING.

Erin, look what we found from Hawaii. These two ferries were running from Honolulu to the outer islands for only a short time before some legal “mumbo jumbo” put the snafu on their great enterprise.

HAWAIIAN FERRY

This is the lighthouse at the Tumble Shoal Horn Channel, just floating right out there. It appears to be a popular place with the boaters.

Now this fly-over was super impressive. This mega aircraft just floated over us like it was a feather. I think we are in “military heaven”.

BIG BIRD

We proceeded up the York River to the York River Yacht Haven at Gloucester Point in the lower Chesapeake Bay. Lucky us! We had just tied up at the dock and gotten our power and water turned on when the skies opened up with thunder and lightning accompanying the pounding rain. Kind of nice, safe and sound in our little floating home.

YORK RIVER YACHT HAVEN

Soon the sun was back and we walked up to the dock’s nice restaurant for a most fabulous dinner wit soft shell crabs, fish and gumbo. Yummy!

THE RIVER'S INN

BEAUTIFUL SOFT SHELL CRAB

During our after dinner walk we saw flashing emergency lights at the dock area behind the restaurant and wandered over to sate out curiosity. Some poor man had gotten hurt when the dock step broke as he stepped down onto it. He was really in pain but the story only begins here. We found that he had just been towed in by Tow Boats as he had been bobbing about somewhere for three days with no sleep or food on a sail boat that was not working. There has to be more to the story (radio? Why not sail?) but it really sucked to be him!