Next Morning 2

Next Morning 2 Next

The following morning Robert and I got out of bed around 6:00 a.m. and were ready to start engine checks. Cpt. Randi informed us that there was a Nor'easter setting in today, and we would have sustained winds of 15 to 25 m.p.h. and gusts of 30 to 40 k.t.s. In the Chesapeake River there where 5 to 6 ft. swells or waves so it wasn't looking too promising. On Monday the wind is supposed to calm down in the afternoon. We decided to stay in Norfolk, VA for the weekened and head out Monday morning. Around 11:45 we took a walk to the ferry station and took it across the river to downtown Norfolk To visit a museum by the name of Nauticus. It was a scientific place but they also had a Naval mu seum inside the building. It tells you about all of the old battleships that the navy used and were they've been, what they've done. Outside the museum there was the last battleship built forthe United States, it was named the USS Wisconsin. A man gave us a very good and detailed tour of the boat, the only thing was that you couldn't go inside due to the asbestos and pcp's. In the future, the city of Norfolk would like to clean out the ship so citizens can go inside.

After walking around the museum for a couple hours we took a walk around the city and found a mall. The inside of the mall was enormous; it was three stories high and a movie theater was inside. When we saw the movie theater it sounded like a good and relaxing place to go. We sat down to a funny christmas movie,A Perfect Christmas. When the movie was over the sun had already fallen and we all started to get a little sleepy and cold. We took the ferry back to the other side of the river and walked to the marina where we ateinner in the restaurant. It begun to sprinkle right before we got to the boat and then rained hard, so we hurried inside, snuggled up in our beds and fell asleep.

We slept in until around 8:30 Sunday morning. When I came up from my cabin Cpt. Randi was already planning what to do for the day. I went and had an early morning shower before we left. A taxi came and picked us up to take us to the airport for a rental car. By the time we walked in the airport and sat down Cpt. Randi had already had the keys, and we were ready to go. It took us a while to find the car as we had passed the sign for rental car pickup so we had to turn around and go back to it. When we left the airport we grabbed a bite to eat and headed off to the National Maritime mueseum in Newport News, VA where they had cannons and artifacts from the great Monitor, a boat from the Civil War. It was one of the first ironclad boats ever built in the world. The museum was beautiful and well put together. There were about five or six movies that told how the ship was built and how it was sunk. There was a huge variety of other things like old, unique boats and naval stories. It took nearly 4 hours to go through the museum and to see all of the old style boats. We left the museum and went back to the airport to drop off the rental car and take a cab back to the marina It was a long drive. We got to the marina around 5:00 and Ms. Clarice made some cookies. It was still very cold and windy. It was supposed to be like this until tomorrow afternoon.

The wind was still a little strong in the morning and we waited until after breakfast to head out. There were no problems coming out of the docks and in the beginning of the day. By the time we got out into the Chesapeake Sound we had 5 to 6 ft. waves coming into the bow of our boat. It was really rough and unexpected. When the waves would hit hard a huge splash of water would fly up over the side of the boat and hit the windshield. Waves were crashing on us everywere for a good 20 miles before we found a marina in the City of Yorktown located less than a mile away from the Yorktown battlefield. We docked around 3:00 and the wind was still blowing hard. Yorktown was beautiful. We all took a walk down the beach where there was a trail that took us to the battlefield. It was enormous; you could see for miles. The museum was right there so we stopped in and watched a short video on the battle of Yorktown and it was amazing to kind of think about what it was like during the Revolutionary War. On our walk back we went through the town and saw some of the homes that officers of that war had lived in. As we were coming to this ditch on the side of the road there was a deer so we took some pictures. It was about 200 ft. away but it was a cool site. We got back to the boat, made brownies took showers and went to sleep.