Portsmouth, VA

Oct 24th/25th - Released the lines from the dock and let the Summer Wind take us down the York River. Our cruise down the York River into the Chesapeake Bay was relatively calm. Unfortunately when we reached the mouth of the Chesapeake the winds had picked up and we were also running against the current. The Summer Wind felt like she was surfing the pipeline of Hawaii,,, well  maybe not quite that bad. But what made this precarious was we had an entourage of Navy Ships leaving port. To say that these ships not only require a relative distance,, they also create quite a wake. The Captain had a heck of a time trying to keep us on course.

New York leaving Norfolk

The two small things on  the deck are people

Early afternoon we found space at the free basin in Portsmouth,Va to tie up for 2 nights.  As we had just settled down for a quick bite of lunch we heard a knock on our door. It was our cruising friends Jeffrey and Karen from aCappella welcoming us back to Portsmouth. They run a fantastic cruising website called Active Captain. They are not the only famous ones in the family, Dyna and Dylan  (their 4 legged children) have a great cruising blog. Talk turned to weather after the hellos and Jeffrey told us about the deteriorating weather window.

Catching the Tide

We spent 2 great nights in Portsmouth. One of our fun excursions was grabbing the ferry to head over to Norfolk. Then we rode on the new electric train called the Tide. Portsmouth/Norfolk are transport friendly places, you can ride all day for $3.50 or the great senior rate of $1.50.