Exploring Norfolk

Being stuck in Norfolk for a week actually makes me miss Oswego.  It was a much better place to be stuck.  You'd think that Norfolk would be cool since it's a bigger city, but I'm finding that's not the case.  Our harbor is kind of in the middle of nowhere, so I've been getting pretty familiar with the bus system.  I took a couple buses to get over to the coast (which was the only place to rent a bike) and it took about two and a half hours one way.  A bus to downtown Norfolk takes about an hour.  I've also found that most buses I'm on, I'm the only white person.  I just checked out the demographics for Norfolk and wasn't surprised to see that 45 percent of the population is african american.  A little change from any of the cities I've lived in.  I have found a few fun things to do though.  I've been to the virginia zoo, chrystler art museum, went to a movie, and went to a little concert in downtown Norfolk.  I also went to work at a habitat for humanity house in virginia beach, close to where I rented the bike.  I spent the day hanging sheet rock two girls (Monique and Rosalyn) who were there with a group of volunteers from a navy base.

 The highlight of my zoo experience....the newts were pretty cool too

 Is Broccoli still good for you when you deep fry it?

 They had some really interesting digital mirrors in the chrystler art center.  You stand in front of it and slowly your image appears.  Then every time you move it gets messed up again.

I've never actually seen one of these remote controlled sail boats until now.  New item for my christmas list.

Norfolk, VA

We made it to Norfolk, Va about 47 hours after leaving New York City.  The wind was offshore and often blowing around 20 knots so we were able to sail about 6-7 knots most of the way down.  We took three hours shifts at the helm which was nice at night since you got to sleep almost a full 6 hours at a time.  This was my first time doing an overnight shift.  The first night I had the 9-12 shift as well as the 6-9 in the morning.  The next night, I had the 12-3.  I kind of like being at the wheel all by myself at night, especially with the full moon. 

 Leaving New York we sailed right by Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

 I missed my sunrises and sunsets being on the Erie and the Hudson for so long.

 Every once in a while we get these little guys who come hang out on our boat for a rest.  They'll plop right next to you within a foot and just hang out.  I think they're trying to catch a free ride south.  Anyways, this one was brave enough to fly into Jim's cabin in the front of the boat.

 There are military stations everywhere in Norfolk and this one is actually right in the same harbor as us.

We leave Norfolk for the Islands on the 2nd and we might have company.  There is sort of a race/cruising group that head's down south on the Caribbean 1500 so we're going to try to leave with them.  In the mean time, Jim and Dave both flew home to see their wives so I've got the boat to myself  :)  There's not a whole lot close to where we're docked, so I took a couple buses over to Virginia beach yesterday to rent a bike for the week (purple beach cruiser).  Still not sure exactly what I'm going to do the whole week, but I'm in the library right now scoping out the area.  Weather's been sunny and 80 so far although I know it's supposed to cool down later in the week.  Still it's a great change from the cold weather we've been having.

NYC

We made it to NYC.  For some reason I was under the impression that the landscape would settle down as we went south but it kept getting more spectacular.  A lot of rolling hills with fall colored trees and cool rock formations.  I've been to New York City when I was really young, but I really don't remember anything about it.  I was amazed when I saw the skyline.  This place is huge!

 This is about 20-30 miles north of NYC

 I've been pretty lucky about crossing paths with friends on this trip.  I got to see Mary in Detroit, Evan in Troy, and now Emily.  Emily is actually a friend from Belize.  She was there for two years in a volunteer organization and was working at the same school as me in Punta Gorda.  She's from long island, so she was my tour guide for the day and drove me around the city.  I have to admit I could never drive in downtown New York City.  I was nervous enough in the passenger seat (even though she was a terrific driver).  As cool as it was to see the city, I definitely could never live here.  Too big.

 Here's time square.  You can sort of see the ball up on top for new years.  We took a bus downtown today and just walked around.  Some of the places we went: central park(amazing...except they made me take my slackline down), chrystler tower, grand central station, a couple huge churches, and a huge library.  Fun day, but my legs are tired.

I couldn't resist :)

So tomorrow morning we're taking off for Norfolk, Virginia.  It should be about 3 days offshore so we're all pretty excited.  It will be a good warm up for the next leg (virginia to St Thomas).  We'll have to take night shifts and get used to sleeping out at sea.  We should also be sailing by the statue of liberty tomorrow morning which we have yet to see.  Then on to the ocean.  The weather is calling for strong offshore winds, so it should be good.

Down the Hudson

We're finally heading south!  We got our mast put up yesterday morning and got all the sails back up so now we're heading down the Hudson.  The hudson has been really nice with all the fall colors and mountains to the west.   

 First day with the sails up there was no wind, but I couldn't be too upset with a perfect sunny day.

 Here's our mast going up.  It's amazing how quick and easy it is.  The tough part was the rest of the day that we spent putting the radar up, sails up, and rerigging everything.

 I noticed this morning that our speed over water was faster than our speed over ground, which meant that the hudson was actually flowing north(by about 1 knot).  This chart on our GPS shows how the changing tide affects the Hudson's current.  I thought this was really interesting considering we were still at least 100 miles from the coast.

We got to our marina and were a little discusted at the segal crap all over the dock.  It got worse when a rat came out from under the dock and started feasting.  The marina was actually pretty nice though and we're the only boat here.  Tomorrow we should be getting to New York City (or just north of it).  We're all pretty excited to sail by the statue of liberty.

on the move with the canadians

We're finally back on the water!  We left Oswego on Tuesday morning after almost 2 weeks of being stuck.  We headed south on the Oswego Canal which eventually hits Lake Oneida and then becomes the Erie Canal.  In about two more days we should hit the Hudson River which will take us down to New York.

 We woke up one morning at five hoping to leave but there was a thick fog.  This is after most of it burnt off and turned into a beautiful day.  It was below freezing that night but eventually warmed up to around 60.

 Crossing Lake Oneida on a the same picture perfect day.

The locks close at 5 so we tied up to the wall for the night.  Here's Jim trying to hotwire the locks so we could keep moving.

 With no power that night (meaning no heat), we decided to start a little fire.

 Another clear starry night.  Not sure how well this will turn out, but all of the jets made a cool pattern in the sky that night.

And here's our armada of sail boats.  There are all other boats that were stuck in Oswego with us and they all happen to be Canadian.

Still not going anywhere

Well, if you're wondering why I haven't posted a blog recently it's because not a whole lot has happened.  We've been in Oswego NY since last thursday and we're still not quite sure when they'll open the locks.  They had posted tomorrow as the day they would open, but I'm highly doubting that since the water level has barely dropped.  In the mean time, we're trying to keep busy.  Some of the things I've been up to: lots of reading, went to the pumpkin festival (which was nothing compared to Mommsen's), daily trips to the library, wandering shops around town, nightly grillouts, and I've been trying to get myself to learn some spanish with a spanish for dummies book I got last christmas.

 This picture doesn't really show how strong the river is right now, but you can see the canal on the right.  Not technically the erie canal yet.  It actually puts us back in the river a little further up which is why we're still waiting.  Also, I guess a lot of the markers are either swept away or being pulled under with the high water level.  I guess the amount of water coming down the river right now is four times what it usually is.

And here's our nice little harbor.  We know most of the people here by now, but usually one or two boats will come in each day.  Oswego really is a nice town, but after a week and a half of sitting around, I'm more than ready to leave!

Not going anywhere for a while...

We're currently stuck in Oswego.  We pulled in a couple days ago the same day that they got 5" of rain.  It was actually some weather associated with Hurricane Nicole I guess, but the river is raging right now and they won't open the locks until it settles down.  On the bright side, it's a nice little town and we've been keeping busy.  We spent the first day preparing to take our mast down.  We had to build supports for it and take our sails down. 

 We'll have our mast down for about another week or so until we hit the Hudson.

 Here's the map I've got in my journal.  One of my favorite thing to do each day is mark off our day's journey.  Unfortunally I won't be making any progress on this anytime soon.

Our last stop was in Rochester, NY.  Pretty sketchy place so there wasn't much to do downtown, but I came across this falls in the middle of the city.

So I'm gonna give the very short story of why I'm dressed in guitar hero pants and a shirt with Red Fox.  Basically, I got put in the River one night and came across a couple camped out in the woods (Bubba and Jessica).  They got me some dry clothes and let me use their sleeping bag for the night.  Also gave me a can of mountain dew and donuts for breakfast.  They were from Syracuse and were there fishing King Salmon so I came back and hung out with them the next day.  Bubba insisted that I keep the shirt.  ha 

Anyways, we're hoping to get out of Oswego by Wednesday.  We're getting to know the other boaters pretty well and they're all pretty interesting.  Pretty sure I'm the youngest in the harbor by about 30 years.