GLORY DAYS ON THE GREAT LOOP: PORTSMOUTH / NORFOLK

DAY 309-313, TUES, MAY 22,TO MAY 25, 2012

MILE MARKER ZERO, PORTSMOUTH/NORFOLK, VA

On DAY 224, on Feb. 24, 2012 I wrote that we had reached our southernmost point. That was at mm1195 at Marathon in the FL Keys. We departed Marathon on March 24 at 08:15, and are now here at mm0 after 1195 miles, 59 days, and countless adventures! WHAT AN ADVENTURE! Now we have to plan the next segment of our adventure, the 800+ miles to home. Our objective is to arrive home on June, 23. That gives us 34 days before this adventure ends. We are going to miss it, but the good news is we will be very happy to be with our family again.

Portsmouth is a definite must see stop. First, it is very boater friendly. The first night we spent at the Ocean Marina for $2/’ plus electric. The city has 2 free docks that hold about 6 boats each. The south dock is right at the foot of High St, the main street in the city. We moved there this morning with Something Special and stayed there until Sat. No sooner had we tied up than 2 local merchants came by with welcome packages. One was Bob, the owner of Marker 1 Marine Supply, the other was the lady who owns the Coffee Kiosk just a few yards away. The rules are you cannot stay overnight but they don’t seem to be enforced. In fact the local policeman, Officer Tom Jones, came by to check out our boats. He does this with all new arrivals as he loves trawlers and hopes to retire to one soon. He said we could stay as long as we liked and if anybody bothered us to call him. We have been in touch with Jean & Brian Orr on Spirit of Whitby, and decided to wait for their arrival on Thurs. In the mean time we toured the town with Evelyn & Sid. We took the ferry to Norfolk and went to the Nauticus Museum, a naval history museum. The best display was the battleship Wisconsin. We spent 2 hours checking out everything aboard her from stem to stern and thoroughly enjoyed it (http://www.nauticus.org/). The Orrs arrived on schedule and it was good to see them again after so long. We had a great reunion, and that night we all went to the Commodore theatre for dinner and a movie. The Commodore is a restored 40’s era theatre with seats and tables that serves light fare and drinks. We enjoyed the dinner and the theatre, but the movie, “The Avengers” was a little too much for our tastes. On Fri. we rented a minivan and all went to Colonial Williamsburg for the day.