Portsmouth’s not a bad place to hang out. The cruising guides warn against wakes in the Elizabeth River, and we do get bounced a little from time to time, but with the heat wave we’ve been having it’s so much cooler out at anchor than we would be at the free dock at the ferry landing.
Being in a busy harbor we see lots of marine traffic all day long. There are two pretty schooners that take tourists out a couple of times a day; there are barges and tows; various pleasure boats come and go, either near us at anchor or to and from the adjacent marina. There’s the USS Wisconsin just across the river and huge cargo ships.
We’ve explored Old Town and visited the lightship.
We’re located between a naval base and the navy shipyard. When we take the ferry we get a great view of the ships being worked on at the yard.
Yesterday morning Jack said, “Holy crap! Look at that!” it was a huge warship just across the river being escorted to the shipyard by six tows.
We looked her up — the USS Donald Cook, going in for an upgrade to Aegis class — and watched until she was out of sight. You don’t see that everyday!
Later we enjoyed the company of our neighbor in the anchorage, Alan from Snow White, a Brit sailing out of Northern Ireland.
