Portsmouth and Norfolk, Virginia

We entered into the Portsmouth/Norfolk area and immediately were met with the largest Naval Drydock facility in the country. The drydock has been in continuous operation since the Civil War when it was the Gosford Shipyard.

We pulled into a small basin right in the heart of Olde Towne Portsmouth. This basin has room for 6 or so boats and a ferry comes in every 30 minutes to take passengers to Norfolk across the river.

Next to us is the Portsmouth Light Ship. This was a lighthouse built in 1916 and was used in areas where it was too treacherous to build a permanent lighthouse. These were manned vessels and it must have been something to spend two months on and one off in the conditions where these ships were deployed. They are no longer in use and this one is set up as a museum.

We met up with Ron and Bonnie Murphy and Drex and Joyce Bradshaw, some people we met while we were at Jacksonville in March, that live close by. Ron invited us all to dinner at their house and we had a good time visiting. Ron is a good cook and taught Stacy to make fresh Bruschetta. We had dinner using a tablecloth that had the signatures of visitors from the past 10 years or so.

We took the ferry over to Norfolk and toured the USS Wisconsin. This is the last battleship built in the U.S. It has not been completely deactivated and was used as recently as the Persian Gulf War. We were able to tour the main deck and it is an awesome feeling to be standing under the 16" guns on this ship. The guns fire a 2700 pound projectile 28 miles and each one can be fired every 30 seconds.

I complain about having to work with my anchor chain but each link in this chain weighs 160 pounds. The anchors are around 30,000 pounds each.

We also visited the Douglas MacArthur museum in Norfolk. It was very interesting to see the life history of a man so dedicated to the U.S. and his storied military career.

We toured the old part of Portsmouth. right where we are docked, and looked at all of the old houses in this town. Many of the original houses from the mid 1700's are still here. There is much to see in this area and we are finding that it is true that you can spend an entire year in the Chesapeake without seeing everything you want to.

We will leave tomorrow for Yorktown. From there we will visit, by land, Williamsburg and Jamestown.