May 5th and 6th Deale to Norfolk

Departure was fairly smooth this year.  Looked like the battery was dead again but it turned out that the guys that worked on the engine left the breaker off.

Out of the marina and on the way by 11:00.  Had some medium light winds and got to fly the genakre (big sail 1/2 way between genoa and spinnaker).  Got into some gusty weather as the storms came through.  Took down the genakre and got consistently good speed the rest of the night.  Somehow we skirted the edge of very slow moving storms and were able to get strong wind but no downpours.

We took shifts sailing through the night.  No moon as the clouds were really thick but visibility was actually pretty good.  Little bit of rain during the night and at one point down towards the Rappahannock, the bay is very wide and with the weather we could not see land, lights, other boats or anything.  Very strange when you are used to sailing on the bay and can almost always see something.  It was really work to steer with no reference at all.

Passed the Carnival cruse ship in the middle of the night.  Took a while to figure out what it was because of how it was lit but not moving.  Got into Norfolk by ~9:30 am so the whole trip covered 126 nautical miles, took 22 1/2 hours and we average 5.7 knots.  We were really flying most of the night. Steve prime hit 10.4 knots surfing the waves on the way into Norfolk.  The boat's theoretical hull speed is 7.2 knots.

Norfolk is interesting, lots of cargo traffic.  The new big ship app worked well all night so we generally knew when they were coming. We saw train cars being driven up a few at a time and loaded onto coal ships.

Lots of military ships too.  We think this one is a fuel resupply ship.

Here is where we are staying in Norfolk.  Right at the waterside in downtown. We classed up the place by drying all of our wet gear on the boom.

 

Got some breakfast after getting in (Sat at the table waiting for food as the whole restaurant rocked back and forth). No plans yet for tomorrow.  We will see which way the wind is blowing when we get up.