Hampton, Virginia

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Wed 9 Oct 2013 01:33

37:01.0N 76:20.4W

 

30th Sept to 8th October

 

Well here we are at last having stayed in Norfolk at least a week longer than we had planned. Frankly it was a real wrench to tear ourselves away from Gary and Greta’s as they had made us so welcome on their dock and every time we discussed leaving, they came up with reasons for us to stay. But we decided that this Sunday was to be the day, right up to Sunday morning when they invited us and Tony and Jill from Nychea who had just docked next to us, for dinner. So it was to be Monday, except that Nychea invited us round for a curry so the departure slipped to Tuesday.  Tuesday dawned with the wind whistling out of the north at 20 knots and gusting 30 knots. Just the job given that we were heading, er…. North.  So we said our goodbyes and eased our way back out of our berth and headed off down the Elizabeth River and into the teeth of the wind and a full flood tide.  It was a less than pleasant trip and although it was only 10 miles or so, it took quite a while as the wind and tide combined to reduce our speed over the ground at times to barely 2 knots.  Things were enlived by a huge container ship along with two tugs helping it pirouette in the river turning it round just as we were passing them. Then for good measure the navy attempted the same maneuvure with a warship a mile further on. I suppose it served us right for not making the trip when we had planned.

 

But there was a silver lining when we arrived at Bluewater Marina in Hampton.  I was dreading threading us into one of their berths in the 25 to 30 knot cross winds, so it was a real bonus when they called us up and told us that they wanted to put us on a hammerhead (T head) which was perfect. In addition they have told us we can stay here for a few days and then when the wind drops they are moving  us to an ideal slip with pontoons on both sides. The best slip in the marina!

 

We have really enjoyed our stay in Norfolk again as the slip that Gary and Greta provide is so central and convenient for everything. We made various sorties to the main mall and of course the excellent Harris Teeter Grocery store. I visited the Battleship Wisconsin and Nautica Museum which are close by and thoroughly enjoyed both. This visit was provided free by Howard (one of Greta’s  neighbours) who it transpired later is one of the principle benefactors of the whole attraction. I was treated as a full VIP once they knew!

 

David Bridges, another OCC member who we met last year, came along to see us and we went out to dinner with him and G & G midweek. Then he came back on Friday and took us out for the afternoon in his battered Ford amd we headed firstly over to Newport News and its truly excellent Mariners’ Museum. This was a revelation and an outstanding museum which we can highly recommend, they even had an example of a duck shooting skiff from Maldon, Essex which Sarah, even as a native, has only read about but never seen before. Sadly we simply did not have enough time there as we were heading on up to Deltaville to meet friends on Nimue for (another) dinner out.

 

So in due course we arrived in Deltaville where Nimue has been hauled out to have some serious repairwork down following their confrontation with a submerged rock in Maine. We all had a great evening at the end of which David kindly drove us all the way back to Norfolk.

 

So all in all an eventfull week during which we also got a number of jobs done on board Serafina as outlined in the previous blog entry.  In addition, Sarah has been cleaning up each cabin one at a time to prepare them for us to photograph as we go along for the sales particulars. Rather sad in its way, but it helpful to get these things done.