Portsmouth and The Peninsula

This posting brings us the 45 miles from Coinjock NC to Portsmouth VA, and the 36.5 miles to Yorktown VA on “The Peninsula”.

We inaptly timed the trip up the canal. If we had left half an hour earlier or later, it would have meant a half hour less of waiting time for the first bridge opening, though other such delays were inevitable.  We motored at 2.5 knots to get to some bridges on time, and caught up with power boats who had sped past us and waited at the next hurdle. There were no low bridges to worry about for the first 60 percent of the journey and then about five and a lock in the last part of the trip as we approached Norfolk. The lock, our only one in the whole ICW, was at Great Bridge. It raised us only two feet but there would have been one terrific current running through there if not for the lock. This is the Bridge at Great Bridge, down, followed by a gaggle of boats passing through behind us once opened.

Norfolk is quite industrial/commercial with this scrap metal bound for perhaps China?

 It is a repair place for many vessels.

We had planned to stay at a free tie up to a sea wall between the Renaissance Hotel and the ferry dock in Portsmouth, across from Norfolk. Dick and Elle and the Skipper Bob Cruising Guide told us that the sign “No Overnight Dockage” relates to a rule that is not enforced.  No water, electric or help tying up, but we didn’t need such services. Approaching Norfolk we got a call from Autumn Borne and made a plan to join them for a pot luck dinner aboard. They were anchored in a pretty open space, north of Lambert’s Point and east of Craney Island (which island is now joined to the mainland) shown on this map of a battle line during the War of 1812, in an exhibit at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Historical Museum.

Lene and Susan were planning the menu for our first rendezvous since Charleston when a strong windstorm erupted. Autumn Borne is only one foot longer than ILENE but weighs about twice as much and hence is more comfortable in big winds. Having gone about three miles past our planned destination, we backtracked to it. I felt bad about changing the recently made plan but Dean and Susan understood the reason.

 

 The ferry.

Alphie jumped up onto this piling.

Next day was an all day rain so we stayed for a second free night. During the day we planned on our first breakfast off the boat for many months. But the bagel store/deli that had been recommended did not open till 8:30! What kind of breakfast place is that! So we had an excellent but expensive breakfast at the Renaissance Hotel, during which a torrential rain occurred, causing us to wait half an hour, reading, before returning to the boat. Then OH NO!! We always double check each other when leaving the boat to make sure all hatches and ports are closed, even when no rain is expected. But this time the two hatches over the salon were open and the big cushions on the salon settees had to be dried out, as did the ends of each chart in two chart kits. Lots of mopping up, wringing out, blotting, the insertion of paper towels between each page of the chart books and two sunny days put all things right again. BAD mistake...hopefully never to be repeated!

We had dinner in a 50’s style restaurant one night – the early bird special. This place was not a retro 50’s place, it had simply not redecorated or updated its menu or its musak since then. But the food was ok.

I gave Lene some alone time and went to the museum. It is run by the City of Portsmouth which has been the site of shipbuilding and repairing since well before this nation was a nation. The Navy Shipyard's role in every war was outlined. I learned about the battle of Great Bridge, through which we had passed enroute from Coinjock – more of a skirmish and the only aspect of the museum that was poorly described; so I’m still not sure who won that skirmish but the place apparently had strategic significance. The lightship PORTSMOUTH is permanently sited in a cement filled drydock and the museum explained the role of such ships, which were used instead of lighthouses until they were all replaced a few decades ago by large unmanned buoys or fixed towers.

Notice her anchor, a mushroom type, the same as our mooring at home, only much bigger, designed to keep her on location during hurricanes.

 

I also took a walk in Portsmouth's Olde Town and saw the “movie set” streets.

 

We motored from Portsmouth to Yorktown in calm seas, really calm,

 

after passing Hampton, VA, from which ILENE had left the US in early November 2010,

 

and Thimble Shoal Light, protecting big ships from the shoal which is 12 feet deep, extending back to the land behind it. We passed on the “safe side” though we draw less than half of 12 feet.

Notice the men (and women these days?) lining the deck of this war ship fore and aft, just as we did back in the day; I always wondered at the waste of manpower.

We planned to visit a marina in the James River, on the southwest side of The Peninsula, because we had never been in that river. But we learned that the road was being reconstructed to that marina which would have made it difficult to connect with our friends Stan and Carol, who live in Williamsburg on The Peninsula, so instead, we went back to the municipal marina, Riverwalk Landing, in Yorktown, on the York River, on the north side of The Peninsula, where we had stayed in 2006. They were having a tall ships gathering

and thus had no dock space but rented us a mooring about .6 miles down river. Good thing because the river is 50 feet deep and has a strong current, not a good place to anchor.

The highlight of our visit to Yorktown was our friends, Stan and Carol. I figured out that it being 2012, I’ve been friends with Stan for 50 years. He is a professor of genetics at William and Mary and she is an extremely talented quilter and a general good person, giving up the day with us because she had made a commitment to accompany an older lady to a quilting show – a three hour bus ride away each way! 

They had lent us a car in October and November 2010 while we waited for Hurricane Tomas to pass so the Caribbean 1500 could begin. We got a new 4G Android cell phone for Lene and a charging cord for the laptop and did some provisioning. We also toured historic Jamestown and College Creek where Stan catches trophy fish.

All told, we enjoyed three dinners with them, one at their home. That evening the airwaves were filled with news of a rapidly approaching squall line with many tornadoes in it; so they put us up for the night.  Sort of a “training wheels” approach to our sleeping ashore again after having not done so for the past seven plus months.  The kitties survived without us. Carol gave us four “coffee themed” quilted placemats that she had made.

The Peninsula is full of history: Jamestown, where Captain John Smith and Pocahontas lived in the 1600s; Yorktown, where General Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington in the 1700s; the indecisive “Peninsula Campaign” during the Civil War in the 1800s; and  Williamsburg, once the capital of Virginia.

Posted in New York City where we have arrived safely home.