Our last blog entry was on September 27 and we were expecting to leave Solomons the following day. Once again, the winds were very strong and we were unable to leave. After three nights at anchor, we moved over to Solomons Yachting Center for two additional nights. Tom and Julie on Sum Escape caught up with us and we enjoyed meeting them for drinks at the Tiki Bar.
Tiki Bar in Solomons
The weather finally cleared up enough for us to leave Solomons with Sum Escape on October 2. We made a long day of it - 88-1/2 miles (10 hours of cruising), but the weather and water were good so we decided to keep going. We were going to stop for the night up the Great Wicomico River. Instead, we found a great anchorage at Sharp Point in Mobjack Bay. After 10 hours of cruising, we were tired!
We got up the next morning and left Mobjack Bay for Hampton, Virginia. It was a good cruising day, although a bit windy. We didn't know it at first, but we would have several encounters with the US Navy. As we were leaving Mobjack bay we saw a navy destroyer in the distance. For reasons still unknown, the destroyer turned right towards us and started to enter Mobjack Bay. It was a classic crossing situation. We were the stand on vessel and the destroyer was the give way vessel which means the destroyer was supposed to turn to starboard to avoid a collision. Only he didn't turn! I suppose the destroyer's helmsman thought that since he was the bigger vessel . . . Anyway, we and also Sum Escape increased our speeds considerably to get out of the path of the destroyer. Interestingly, Navy ships do not have (or use) AIS systems, so we were not able to determine the closest point of approach (CPA) or the time to closest point of approach (TCPA).
This is the Destroyer That Almost Ran Over Us
Because of shoaling around the Hampton Roads Inlet, you normally would cruise a fair distance out into the bay, turn south for a few miles like you are leaving the bay, and then turn back to the west to enter the James River. Unfortunately, the US Navy was conducting maneuvers directly offshore of the inlet. In essence, they closed a large body of water to all civilian and commercial traffic. A fleet of small patrol boats kept watch over us and were prepared to chase us away if we violated the exclusion zone. Fortunately, there was a buoy-free small boat channel through the shoaling that we could use. The term "buoy free" refers to the fact that crab and fish traps cannot be placed in the channel and, for the first time, it seemed to work.
We spent one night at the Hampton Public Pier. Hampton is a small town directly across the river from Norfolk, VA and, without a car, we did not find much to see or do. There was a street with a few restaurants and we went out to dinner with Tom and Julie from Sum Escape.
By this time, we knew Hurricane Matthew was a real threat to the East Coast and early reports were that the area we were in could be hit hard. We left Hampton Public Pier and cruised over to Ocean Yacht Marina in Portsmouth, Virginia to wait out the storm. Sum Escape went on about 15 miles further to another marina where they could get some more work done on their boat. While cruising to Portsmouth, we passed Norfolk Navy Base. Here are two Nimitz Class aircraft carriers. The one on the left is CVN 73 which is the George Washington. The one on the right is CVN 77 which is the George H.W. Bush. The carrier George H.W Bush is the 10th and final Nimitz Class super carrier to be built. Now for the numbers. Nimitz Class super carriers are 1092 feet long, have a beam of 252 feet, and a draft of 37 feet. They are powered by two Westinghouse A4W nuclear reactors feeding four steam turbines (4 shafts) for a total of 260,000 horsepower. By comparison, Tug LeeLoo has a single diesel engine that produces 330 horsepower (on a good day). Oh, and the cost $6.2 billion net each.
The strange looking ship below is the Zumwalt (DDG 1000), the navy's newest high-tech destroyer. It has faceted sides and internal weapon bays (just like a stealth aircraft) to reduce it's radar cross section. Zumwalt Class destroyers are 600 feet long, have a beam of 81 feet, and a draft of 28 feet. They also have an all-electric drive system, two Rolls Royce MT30 gas turbines power two Curtis Wright RR4500 electric generators which drive two shafts through electric motors (150,000 horsepower). Zumwalt Class destroyers cost nearly $4 billion net each. Only three will be built; after fifteen years of development it was determined that they are too vulnerable to attack in the shore attack / protection role it was designed for. Our tax dollars at work!
We have never been in a hurricane before. We followed the weather channel closely (thanks to our now working Satellite TV!) and carefully studied all our other weather apps. We prepared Tug LeeLoo to ride out the storm by securing her with extra dock lines, adding more fenders, taking off and storing the weather cloths from the upper deck and all sunscreens, hatch covers, etc., removing the engine from the dinghy, bringing EVERYTHING loose that could blow away into Tug LeeLoo's interior, and securing all of the antennas. We also rented a car for a week so we could leave and go to a hotel for the worst part of the storm. As it turned out, Matthew took a turn to the right and went out to sea before the worst of it hit our area. We were very, very lucky. The most we had was 12 inches of rain and 30-40 mph winds, gusting to 60 mph. Neither one of us wanted to wait out the storm in the heavy wind and rain, so we packed a backpack and went to a hotel in Emporia, Virginia (about 80 miles to the west) for 1 night.
We are happy to report that Tug LeeLoo held up very nicely in the strong wind and rain. We came back to no damage on the outside and no leaking on the inside! We certainly are luckier than many boaters to the south of us. Little did we know that being delayed for multiple days in Solomons was a blessing. That delay kept us north of the hurricane damage.
The first reports of bridges, locks and the Inter Coastal Waterway being open was all doom and gloom and we thought we would have to spend an extra week here in Portsmouth. But, now things seems to be opening up and we plan to leave tomorrow to join Sum Escape near their marina so we can continue our trip south to New Bern. If all goes well, we hope to be in New Bern early next week.
