Here we are again, two years later, waiting out wind and rains in Hampton. Coincidence? This time instead of the Hampton Town Piers, we are at Sunset Creek Boating Center.
Even in the rain, they move boats around.
SailFlow is an app on my phone that we use to check the winds. This is Sunday morning and it is calmed down from yesterday, at least near us, the blue dot. Red and purple colors are NOT good. I am not fond of orange either. Give me the light blues and greens only.
What do you do in the rain? On our last visit in October 2013 (Rainy Days in Hampton) we did a lot of the tourist things with a “Sea to Stars” pass that included a 3-hour boat tour to Norfolk and a visit to the Air and Space Museum. To stretch our legs after 2 days of traveling the water, we walked the mile into Hampton to get ice cream at the Old Hampton Ice Cream parlor. What’s this??? — “Will be back at noon” said the sign on the door. I have to admit we were there for ice cream before noon, but it was after 11:30 am. It’s ice cream time somewhere, right?
Ok, let’s just walk about for a little while. Hampton is pretty quiet without much to do other than the museum.
We continued down to the waterfront near the Air and Space Museum to see if the old carousel might still be open. Hurrah — It was open! Last time it had already closed for the season. Yeah, something new to do!! So glad there was no height maximum. We were the only people there, and for a dollar each, we got to ride.
This carousel was built in 1920 by the Philadelphia Toboggan company. The horses were carved from hardwoods by Italian, German and Russian immigrant artisans. The carousel was located and operated at the Buckroe Beach Amusement Park from 1921-1985. The City of Hampton purchased it in 1991 and had it restored by R&F Designs of Bristol, CT (wow – two geographical connections to me, Philly and CT.) It is now one of less than 70 antique operating carousels still remaining in the US.
A stroll back to the ice cream parlor around 12:15. Still not open. We waited patiently until 12:25 pm.
We bought these cupcakes at a bakery as a consolation treat. Not as good as ice cream.
Saturday was rain, rain, and more rain, with gusty winds thrown in for extra fun. it wasn’t too bad here at the dock, tucked into Sunset Creek. We never left the boat all day. What did we do??? The electricity and free wifi at the dock helped us to pass the time. Al did boat chores, of course. He always finds something to fix or maintain – changed the oil in the engine, changed the fuel filter, fixed the gimbal on the oven, cleaned out the hose from the toilet to the tank, added a doohickey to keep the trash bin from opening in rough seas.
Me, I sometimes take photos or edit them and work on the blog, but mostly I do my boat chores which are not nearly as interesting as Al’s – just cooking, cleaning, organizing and keeping records.
And I read. I am on a “Bosch binge” right now, reading as many of Michael Connelly’s Heironymous Bosch detective novels as I can. How nice that I can download books from my hometown library onto my Nook while traveling!
There is also naptime! A key component of cruising, especially after several long travel days in a row. When it is raining, you have to take a nap. To the right is the view above our heads while we nap – lots of rain drops!
Later in the day, we needed to get off the boat so we had dinner, such as it was, at the Barking Dog, a little restaurant right in the parking lot of Sunset Creek. We had dogs, of course.
Sunday was surprisingly brighter, although still quite windy. It looks like all we do is eat, but we just had to have Chesapeake crab cakes again.
After lunch, we walked some of it off by making a stop at the grocery store for fresh provisions. We tried out our new “Hook and Go portable folding supermarket shopping cart.” Grocery bags hang on the hooks Easy to store It worked very well.
The Captains confer together again, working on the Garmin chart plotter/Homeport software strategies. We are all sure that the designer(s) who create and code the software have a twisted side. They also don’t believe in anything that is “intuitive.” But that doesn’t deter our guys!
The big event for tonight is a rare blood moon total lunar eclipse. That’s a mouthful. It’s a special moon event – not only will there be an eclipse, but the moon will also be about 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than usual,making it a “supermoon.” We actually stayed up past our cruiser bed time to try and photograph it. But with the cloud cover from the recent storms, it wasn’t meant to be. 🙁 Guess we will have to wait until the next one in 2033.
Tomorrow we move again. We are prepared to “do the Dismal,” the Dismal Swamp Canal route. In 2013, it was choked with duckweed and we had to take the Virginia Cut instead. The Dismal Swamp Canal is also shallow at some points and boats tend to bump bottom if their draft is too deep. As a trawler with only a 4.5 foot draft, we should be ok…………
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