Four Nights in Hampton

Nov 2 thru Nov 4 

--Blogpost written by Bob

As you may recall, we arrived in Hampton, Virginia at 5:15 PM on November 1 and got a slip at the Hampton Maritime Center, sometimes referred to as Hampton Public Docks.  We went out for dinner at the Bull Island Brewing Company, within easy walking distance from our slip.   It was very windy and rainy during our first night's stay.  It was also quite (unseasonably) warm!

Friday, November 2

It was overcast when we woke up and, of course, rain is in the forecast for today (but only 20% probability). It is still somewhat windy but it is still nice and warm here in Hampton. I spent some time readjusting our dock lines from the haphazard way we rigged them when we first arrived last night. 

s/v Rainy Days docked at
Hampton Maritime Center.

Hampton Harbor, looking
south from our marina.

We got a good deal on our slip in Hampton—$1.50 per foot of boat length plus buy 3 nights, get an extra night free! So, it cost us $183 for 4 nights. There are a lot of sailboats here in Hampton and a lot of cruisers stop here for a few days. The marina where we are staying is a transient-only marina with a 10-night maximum stay. Boats anchored in the harbor have a 10-night limit as well.

Restaurant row can be found on West 
Queens Way between North King 
Street and Wine Street.

We walked to restaurant row downtown and had lunch. (We had a very good lunch at Marker 20!)  There were about 4 or 5 restaurants open for lunch. From my viewpoint, there were more people working in the restaurants than eating in them at lunchtime today. It may be due to the fact that today is still within the workweek and it’s off-season for tourism—it’s the height of the season for cruisers but I guess they don’t spend enough money.

The entrance to Mint Julep 
Antiques & Art

Vibrant colors of downtown Hampton

We spent most of the afternoon at
Soaps-n-Suds, the local (but
excellent) laundromat.

Saturday, November 3

It was nice sleeping in a dry bed last night! The previous two nights our bed was wet where salt water had leaked through our forward hatch when our boat was doing so much “hobby horsing.”

The sky was overcast and a cool wind stirred in the early morning when I awoke. I helped our slip neighbor get his lines off the dock at 7:30 AM so that he could leave the marina and get on his way south. Of course, the cats were hungry and paced around the boat until I fed them. Hot water for coffee was the next task at hand since I was the first one up.

This season while here in Hampton, I changed our chart plotter setup to provide distance in statute miles instead of nautical miles (and boat speed in mph instead of knots) so that it would match our ICW charts (and I could easily calculate time to go to our destination). (I don’t know why I didn’t do this during our previous two seasons—it was so easy.)

When it warmed up a little, I repositioned our dorade vents so they face aft.  During our “hobby horsing” of the previous two days we took on some seawater through the forward dorade vents even though I have plugs in them to keep the cold air out of the boat.

I reversed both forward dorade
vents while here in Hampton.

About mid-morning we took a little walk around the town just outside the marina.

A unique stairway mural on the side
of a building along Wine Street.

Sunset in the marina.

Sunday, November 4

Even though we turned our clocks back last night, my internal clock can’t be changed that abruptly—I was up at 6 AM.  The outside temperature was a cool 51 degrees this morning and a 12-knot wind was blowing from the northeast. (One of our halyards was clanging early this morning. The wind was hitting it just right, setting up a harmonic vibration from the Von Karman vortex shedding, a swirling of air flow downstream of the halyard. I realize this is probably too much information, particularly this early in the morning.)

Our primary goal for today is to provision for the next five days or so—our next stop for provisioning will be in Belhaven NC or Beaufort NC, about 5 to 7 days from today.  We got our provisioning done in the early afternoon.  Maggie filled the water tanks.

In this photo, Lola represents the energy level
we expressed during the mid-afternoon.

We will be leaving Hampton VA tomorrow about mid-morning since we have a short day ahead of us.  Our next blogpost will be made from Belhaven NC--stay tuned...

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