Norfolk, Virginia. Battleships and homeless people!

Arion's West Indian Adventure
Hermione & Douglas Pattison
Mon 11 Jul 2016 23:36
We secured alongside in Portsmouth, Virginia for the duration of our stay. We had a little boat basin to ourselves and although there are no facilities here we were right at the end of the high street so very convenient. We soon made friends with the unofficial residents of Portsmouth- the homeless people.
At home in England we are totally sheltered from the problem of homelessness. In this city, it was right on our doorstep and I made a conscious decision to educate myself and the children. We felt it was important for Arthur and Alice to be exposed to this and so spent time getting to know our neighbours, who spent each night sleeping on the benches next to our boat. We were able to get good advice (where local showers, loos and water taps are) and shared our food and drink with them. One night ‘Mac’ arrived with a crate of drinking water, which we gratefully accepted- but we did feel that we should not be taking it from him, however I think he would have been offended. It was his way of saying thank you! When it was time to leave we had all of the homeless waving goodbye to us from the dock which was sweet. I leave hoping that they find jobs soon.

We did lots of things here, including swimming in the local marina pool but all the time we were conscious of time and wanted to get to New York. As soon as Douglas had cleverly fixed the leaking elbow joint in the engine we cast off and started our journey to our final big destination- New York!!