MONDAY JUNE 28TH

I was watching the Weather Channel and now realize I need to print a retraction! They did a piece on the oil skimmer A WHALE. Looking at it I thought, hey, that’s not the same ship I took a photo of! The ship in my photo had a blue hull. Sorry about that folks. If you want to read more about this ship, you can click on this link: "A WHALE" oil skimmer 

We left Smithfield at low tide. Went through some shallow water because of it. Never hit bottom but it’s funny when your depth sounder reads 1 foot and you breath a sigh of relief! When we pass through a shallow spot, Ross steers and I watch the depth finder for him.










Passed this lighthouse. It is the Newport News Middle Ground Lighthouse. Built in 1891, it was auctioned off in 2005 to a private party in and online auction for disposal of government property. A family from Williamsburg purchased it for $31,000. They put another 30 grand in to it make it a very offbeat vacation home. The Coast Guard retained ingress and egress rights in order to tend the light as the lighthouse is still used as a navigation aid.








As we traveled out into the Chesapeake Bay, we passed this lighthouse. This is known as the Thimble Shoals Lighthouse. Built in 1872, it replaced the last of the Lightships. It is the navigation aid to the entrance to Hampton Roads. This lighthouse was auctioned off at the same time as the previous lighthouse. It is cast iron and was purchased for $65,000 by a man from Smithfield, Virginia. (ham town)

The term Hampton Roads nowadays refers to an area of south eastern Virginia, including towns. Historically though it refers to a safe harbor area between the rivers and Chesapeake Bay. A “road” in the nautical sense is a place where a ship can safely anchor. Not to be confused with a “rode”, or anchor line/chain. That’s your little nautical lesson for the day.

Our destination for the night was Cape Charles, VA. We crossed the Chesapeake Bay without incident. Maybe 2-foot waves is all. The marina isn't the best we've ever stayed at. We had to climb off the bow pulpit to get off the boat. The "finger" was about 3 feet long so didn't help us in the least as far as getting on and off. No way to gracefully climb off the bow pulpit!!

I have been under the weather with a nasty cold, so decided to just hang out at the boat for the day and rest. Ross dutifully took over the scouting duties and set off to explore the town.

He came back and reported about a meteor and the railroad.

35 million years ago a meteor 2 miles wide crashed to Earth where Cape Charles is today, creating the 6th largest impact crater on Earth. Bedrock fractured seven miles deep and an enormous tsunami went as far as the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains hundreds of miles away!

The railroad of Cape Charles still runs, but not so often anymore. A ferry still comes on occasion and loads up rail cars and transports them. During WWII the men going and returning on leave would take the train to Crisfield and then take the ferry to the Little River near Norfolk. It was the shortest route back to the bases. This was the hey-day of the ferry. One winter while the ferryboat was pulled out of the water, it was cut in half and a new half added on. So in the spring, they had two ferries.






He biked down the beach and took this picture. Looks nice!