Thursday, October 22, 2020
Ocean Yacht Marina - Hudgins Horn Harbor Marina, Port Haywood, VA
41 Miles

We have a great forecast for the Chesapeake Bay, south wind 5 knots and mostly sunny skies. Nice day to head back to our home marina.

Underway we are back out into the Elizabeth River bustling with tugs pushing barges, the Navy making sure we don’t get too close to any Warships. The radio is as busy and I can hardly get my agreement communications with tugs I am meeting. Norfolk and Portsmouth are the busiest places we go by water. Much busier than Miami which can be trying at times too. But there are so many ships being loaded unloaded, barges going here and there, military planes and helicopters. The radio is busy and the sounds from everywhere are loud.

And then there is this, we are headed north meeting all the cruisers heading south. Lots of them today, sail and power, big, smaller, newer and older. All headed to the warmer waters of Florida and the Bahamas. No one called me on the radio asking me had my compass gone bad. We were the only trawler headed north. Susan and I are a little sad we aren’t in the parade south. But we just don’t feel like doing that with the uncertainty of the Covid thing. It has taken lots of the fun out of cruising unless you want to be a hermit boater. Lots of the cruising fun is the impromptu meeting of other boaters. Showing them your boat, seeing their boat, sharing stories and pot luck dinners. Those things can only be done with uncertainty of getting sick. This morning we had a delivery captain that wanted to take pictures of our boat for a friend that had just bought a one year newer Albin like Liquid Therapy. He stuck his phone through the door. We invited him in and he didn’t have his mask and just stuck his phone through the door to take a few inside pictures and the rest were the outside. Liquid Therapy does look pretty good. We are constantly complimented by tourists and other boaters too. Bass Pro used us in a photo shoot with a model and film crew. There was a $2 million boat in front of us. But they used Liquid Therapy.

Once we exited the Elizabeth River, passed Hampton Roads area crossed in front of Fort Monroe we turned for our run up the Chesapeake to Horn Harbor Creek. Gentle ocean swells were coming in and we rode those almost up to the York River, The radio calmed down as we got out of range of all the Norfolk traffic. The Chesapeake was unusually flat calm. The scattered fog seemed would be closing in again this evening. A little melancholy came over Susan and me as our fall cruise was ending….

Today’s picture is Susan and me trying to find Atlantis.