June 5-9, 2014 Norfolk Area

We are at Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake VA. A working and maintenance marina with lots of service going on. Weekdays there is a lot of activity pulling boats out of the water, doing maintenance, and mechanical repairs. They do a wonderful job with wood and make it look fantastic. Most of their permanent slips are under covered sheds and the marina is fresh water with no tide or currents. May keep R Island here for the winter.

June 5: Inch-N-Along (Mike and Lois) are here with us. This is where they bought their boat and we are, more correctly, here with them! Mike rented a car a few days and we loaded op late morning and headed to Norfolk to tour. First stop was the Navy Base where we took a 45 minute bus tour of this 43,000 person facility along with the 13 piers/docks. Saw, but could take no close pictures, 3 submarines, 2 Marine assault ships that hold helicopters and boats, cruisers, and an aircraft carrier.

After lunch at Hell's Kitchen (no relation to the TV show), we toured the Nauticus Museum and battleship Wisconsin on Norfolk's waterfront.

these girls are everywhere

Unlawful photo - oops!

BAC  (Big Ass Carrier!)

The Battleship Wisconsin

Men's Room at Hell's Kitchen

And the Ladies room

Wisconsin again

another mermaid

Ger and Mike resting.....

Judie taking lessons from yet another mermaid!

June 6: Another field trip - this time the Outer Banks and Kitty Hawk NC the Wilbur and Orville Wright Monument. Those guys did a lot without computers, auto-cad and much help. I was amazed that they built their own engine, sewed the muslin wing material on their mothers sewing machine, and worked out all the calculations for pitch, roll and yaw utilizing data from over 1000 glider flights the previous year. Also, much of their time was in Ohio and they were at Kitty Hawk for only 4-6 weeks per trip a few times each year. I guess I should have paid closer attention in school 50 years ago!

On recommendation from the office manager here at the marina, we went to the small town of Manteo for lunch. This older waterfront community has several restaurants and boutique shops in an older restored setting rather that many of the newer buildings closer to the ocean drive.

Stopped at Coinjock Marina on the way back and were treated to a parade of beautifully restored boats (up to 80 feet in length) from the early 1900's that were on their way to Norfolk for a festival.
Also stopped at a farmers market to stock up on fruits and veggies.

Beautiful and accurate reproduction

The glider that provided all the info!

the kitchen in their "camp".

they slept in bunks hung overhead.

Overlooking the area from up on the monument. Note workshop and camp building. markers on the left indicate flight distance from the first marker for the 4 flights that day 125-850 feet.

The balance of the stay at AYB is being consumed by laundry, grocery shopping, engine routine maintenance, washing the boat and other miscellaneous chores. Judie and Lois did take a few hours on Saturday to go out to lunch and do some shopping - girl stuff!