Tide Hiker Adventures: Hampton, Virginia

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Hampton, Virginia

June 12, 2013
37 01.443 N
76 20.476 W

The plans of mice and men....
There is some bad weather arriving Thursday, so last night I spend a few hours searching for an appropriate anchorage to hide in for two nights. When we woke this morning I checked the forecast again. The storm was still there but the wind direction had been changed somewhat. So I spent another half an hour picking another destination as we ate a hurried breakfast and prepared the boat for departure. Last thing, I called the lock-master to request passage at 9:00 AM - the conversation went a bit like this:

Tide Hiker: This is northbound motor vessel Tide Hiker requesting passage at 9:00AM
Lockmaster: "Sorry, the lock is broken"
Tide Hiker: When will it be fixed?
Lockmaster: We don't know what's wrong with it!
Tide Hiker: When will you know?
Lockmaster: "We will tell you when we can!
Tide Hiker: We will hail you in an hour

This dialog was repeated every hour or so until about 1 PM. By then two tugs with barges in tow and a dozen recreational boats had accumulated in front of the dock gates. Fortunately we were comfortably tied to the shore. Most other boats just had to "hold" in the pool between the lifting bridge and the lock gates.

Some time about 1 PM I heard the Lockmaster hail one of the barges and tell them to start moving into the lock. So we fired up Tide Hiker and moved in behind the barge. It was a bit tight, and we had to watch out for the prop wash from the tug, but we made it through OK.

Once we were through the lock we were in the port of Norfolk. For me this is great fun because there are submarines and aircraft carriers and floating docks and all sorts of "good stuff". One interesting piece of equipment was the "hammerhead crane" (photo on the left). In the days of battleships this crane was used to lower the giant gun turrets onto new war ships. Because the turrets were so heavy but the bearing surfaces so easy to damage, the ship was positioned under the crane and the turret was lowered to within a few inches of the ship. Then they would wait for the tide to lift the ship and gently complete the job.

Needless to say, all our planning was now moot as most of the day had been spent waiting for the lock. Because of the delay our options had closed up somewhat so decided to bail out and find a marina. We had not been to Hampton before and it sounded interesting and so here we are. We arrived at 5 PM and tied up right in front of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, very posh.