FRIDAY JUNE 25TH

Traveled from Portsmouth to Hampton. Not very far, but thought we’d go check it out.

Passed many, many Navy ships on the way. This one is Cape Rise. It’s what the Navy refers to as a roll on/roll off ship. It’s used to move large military equipment.

 This is the San Antonio. It is used to transport the Marines along with their equipment. Such as hovercraft.

Now we understand that a sailboat underway without power has the right of way. But c'mon, do you really want to quibble that point with a Navy Oiler that needs 3 tugs to move it around? We have come to realize in our travels that sailors seem notorious for not having their radios on. The Navy ship kept trying to hail the sailboat to get out of the way. Finally the sailboat listened and at the last minute, did get out of the way.

We passed several aircraft carriers being worked on in a shipyard, but some didn’t have numbers so we couldn’t identify them. This one is the Enterprise, also known as “The Big E.” It was the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier. It is set to retire in 2013 after 51 years of continuous service.

This is the Iwo Jima, a multi-purpose assault ship that was running some type of drill. We saw rigid inflatable boats coming and going from it.





I took this ship’s picture because I thought it was so funny how large they had painted “NO SMOKING” on it. We laughed that it must be its name. Little did we realize.

Later, watching the local news, we learned about this tanker. Her name is A WHALE. She is a tanker that has been converted to be an oil skimmer. In its hull are compartments with spinners to extract oil from salt water. She’s ten stories high and almost as long as 4 football fields. She had hoped to be in the Gulf by now skimming oil from the BP spill. Problem is, she can’t remove all the oil from the water so there is oil present in the discharge. Which is NOT allowed by the EPA. Government agencies with their infinite wisdom, will not give them a permit to skim because of that. Even though this ship can handle 500,000 barrels of oily water a day. Which is just slightly less than all the skimmers in the Gulf have gathered in the past 60 days.

Last we heard she is headed to the Gulf to wait.

Very hot and humid, again. We did laundry at the marina. Which was most conveniently located next to the swimming pool. We could bob around in the pool staying cool in between loads.