Day 7-8, October 20 and 21, 2008: Gloucester, VA - Hampton, VA

Day 7-8, October 20 and 21, 2008: Gloucester, VA - Hampton, VA

This was our last day sailing. We left Gloucester with beautiful weather and light winds behind us. We saw a pair of F-22's wheeling around in the sky and practicing aerobatics. We put up both sails to head out of the harbor and sailed for about an hour, at which point the winds became too light and we motored the remainder of the way to Hampton.

As we motored along on the calm water, there wasn't much that needed to be done, so I laid on the bow, closed my eyes, and soaked up some sun. I put on headphones and listened to Loreena McKennitt. That was probably my favorite time of the whole trip. The music is so beautiful and mixed with the sound of the boat surging through the waves; the sun was brilliant and warm behind my closed eyes; the smell of the salt water. There was something ironic about that - in the midst of that almost spiritual experience, I knew then that I had done what I wanted to do, and it was time for me to go home, and I missed my family.

We arrived without event in Hampton and tied up at the slip. We decided to explore the town, and went for a walk around the downtown area. It is a really cool place! It is one of the first place that the English settled down in the New World (we're very close to the original Jamestown settlement). There is a church there that was built in the early 1700's, and there are murals painted on many of the downtown buildings. We had dinner at The Tap House, which would absolutely be one of my regular hangouts if it was in Atlanta. It's a pub with fantastic food. I had linguini with marinara clam sauce that was exactly what I was hoping for, but I was kind of envious of Jack - he had a sort of shepherd's pie in a skillet that looked like it could feed a family of 4.

The next day, we got up early and scrubbed down the boat. This turned out to be easier than I thought, and Razzmatazz looked great after we finished. Then Jack and I went next door to the Air and Space museum. As we learned at the museum, we're right next to Langley field and Norfolk, and Newport News is where they build all the US aircraft carries. The museum was really cool - they had a real F-4 and F-106 suspended in an exhibit area, and they had cockpits and various sections of A-6's, F-16s, a WWII bomber (can't remember which one). There was a flight simulator (after several crashes, I successfully took and landed twice!), an extremely cool 3D IMAX movie about undersea life, scale models of aircraft carriers, and my favorite exhibit, a mini mars rover setup where you could program a route into the computer and then the rover would follow the instructions you sent it.

After that, we had a quick lunch, and then Jack and Joan dropped me off at the airport. We're getting ready to land in Atlanta as I write this. With the trip behind me, I can say that it was everything I had hoped: I am a much better sailor that I was before (charting, lat/lon, anchoring, spinnaker, knots, handling a larger boat, living aboard, much bigger wind and waves, VHF radio, and much more); I had a wonderful time with Jack and Joan; the business ran fine without me for a week; and I am so excited to see Lisa and the kids!