Overnight at Portsmouth

It is an interesting morning here in Portsmouth. We don't have fog, but it is unseasonably warm. It is so warm that Terry is down to his long sleeve Oxford shirt! Those of you who know Terry realize that means it's really warming up here. And it is incredibly humid. The log sheets on the navigation station are sticking to each other - and the nav station! By the way, this is the last time we saw the sun. Thanks to Susan for popping out of her hatch and taking this glorious picture of the sunrise.

Yesterday, Terry came back to LUX. In case there were not enough clues for you, I can now report that Terry volunteered to help bring a boat down from up north. Dave, the captain of Fifth Quarter, found himself single handing the boat due to various crew issues. Terry saw an opportunity to sail on the great blue ocean, so he volunteered to crew. He left us to our own devices to get LUX to Norfolk where he would rejoin us. The plan worked beautifully. We met up at the free dock in Portsmouth. Here is Dave on his boat, Fifth Quarter. Terry and Dave pulled in right alongside us. As you can see, Dave has a Leopard 40 just like ours -almost. It's a year younger.

To celebrate, we went out to dinner at Crave 757- a restaurant at a nearby marina. It was a short walk away- along the waterfront. The food was was good, but service was interesting. The pastas, hamburger, fish burger, and crab cake all came out in good time. However, the two Caesar salads with crab did not appear- not for a good bit after the other dishes. Part of the fun conversation centered around how it was the it took longer to make a salad than it did to make hot dishes. It's certainly a mystery to us.

We pulled out at 8:19 this morning. We had barely cleared the opening when we were hailed. A large crane just wanted to let us know he would be passing us. Norfolk is always a busy port. The passage is always interesting- to put it mildly.

We are now headed on south. We hope to make it through part of the Dismal Swamp today. But, the weather is gray and rainy. To top it off, the bridges have not been cooperating. The one we expected to be open held us up for twenty minutes. We'll see if we make the other ones on time.