Saturday 10 November, Norfolk VA: Clean Cloudy Bay to make her even more presentable for our visitors, and first look at the town.
It was an earplugs night, due to lapping on the stern and squeaky lines and fenders. And we wake up with a mission. Today’s objectives are to tidy up the interior of Cloudy Bay and to visit the town.
The cleaning spree was triggered by two factors. Firstly, yesterday we received an email from Greta (Gary’s wife) that one of our keen followers would like to come and meet us and see the boat. Secondly, we were long overdue a video boat tour of Cloudy Bay. With no further motivation needed, we start cleaning and tidying up. Didn’t take long, because with no tools scattered around it was pretty tidy anyway. We just took the extra effort to make the interior of Cloudy Bay showroom ready 🙂 To the extent that even the sink taps got polished, and the decorative cushions came out of the cupboards and now they cheer up the settee.
We were ready right on time for Stewart and Joseph’s arrival. And a very young soon-sailor-to-be Harrison, Joseph’s son. Stewart is reading our blog and we were quite excited to have him as guest and show him around the boat. Joseph is his friend who managed to get hold of us and made this visit happen for Stewart. We had a very pleasant chat for a while, and later in the morning Caitlin (Joseph’s wife) and her friend joined us too. We felt honored by their interest in our sailing adventures and in Cloudy Bay. It feels nice to have such first hand feedback from our followers. After a very entertaining chat with our visitors, and playing with lines by young Harrison, we said our goodbyes, and maybe we meet them again for drinks or dinner one of the coming evenings.
Now that we have Cloudy Bay ready for pictures, we also take some footage for the video boat tour. This is one video I am looking forward to edit! On second though, after we downloaded the recordings from GoPro, maybe not… too many files for such a small project! Normally we record one scene and that’s it. But this time we overdid it, to get the nicest possible shoots. Cloudy Bay does look exquisite, and we want the video to reflect that. In the middle of all this excitement, when we fell in love with her all over again, we set ourselves new KPI (key performance indicators): Glen is not to have tools scattered around, and I am not to make the colorful cushions disappear again. I’ll make sure he keeps up with his objective, as for mine… 🙂
Mid afternoon we are ready to leave the boat and head out to visit the town. Bright day, with clear blue sky. And if it wasn’t for the bitterly cold northerly wind it could have been quite warm. But this wind makes it feel like winter is already here. And when later in Norfolk we see that Christmas decorations have taken over the town and shops already, it feels even more like winter.
The dock we are on is very nicely positioned right next to the historical area of Norfolk. So as soon as we step out on the street, we are surrounded by nice houses on Freemason area. Then the same along the Granby street. We wander with no particular purpose, just enjoying the surroundings and a relaxed afternoon.
Our steps take us to the USS Wisconsin battleship, which was commissioned in 1944 and took part in World War II, Korean War, the Cold War and also the Persian Gulf War, when Tomahawk missiles strikes were coordinated against Iraq. We only walk around it, and plan to return next week for a visit of the ship and the Navy Museum.
We carry on the walking tour of Norfolk along the waterfront, which is quite nicely done. Across Elizabeth River we see Portsmouth and yet more naval docks. And there is a traditional ferry running between the shores, keeping alive a three centuries tradition.
When we get too cold, we seek shelter in a shopping mall. And that was fatal:) After three days of not spending any money (we have some compensations to do after three weeks in the yard), we came across a sushi stand and we gave in to temptation. Yummy.
Back at Cloudy Bay, we wack the heating up to warm our blood and relax few moments catching up on emails and news. And we are surprised to see an email from Pantaenius (our insurance company) confirming the acceptance of the claim regarding the repairs we undertook following the collision in Cuttyhunk. The response is surprisingly quick, considering it’s a Saturday and that we got an out of office auto reply from Simon, our agent. So far, we are very pleased with our insurance company. The premium is higher than other companies, but we certainly have lots of benefits for it: a narrower area limited as hurricane zone, two months longer sailing season in the hurricane zone, countries that are not covered by other companies (like Cuba), and a very quick response to any issues we have had. We almost feel bad for trying to shop around. Or maybe we appreciate them better now that we’ve shopped around and saw what other insurance companies offer.
Early evening we visit Greta and Gary, who have kindly invited us over for dinner, which was delicious. And we chat the evening away, on all sailing related stories that cross our minds, from heroes British sailors to cruising plans.
Quite a social day, huh?!