Boating with Sunset Delight: 2025 October: Norfolk, VA

22 October 2025

Depart: Mill Creek, Virginia, anchorage 7:50

Arrive: Norfolk, VA Hospital Point anchorage 4:30

Distance: 65 nm

First, an update from yesterday's whoops. Seems like the boat and I both came through the incident with little to no issues. Even the bruise forming on my hand never turned into anything interesting (must be the ice that helped that). Also, we did not notice anything misbehaving on the boat today other than the autopilot that was giving us grief prior to the incident near the anchorage yesterday evening.

Clark and I were up again today before the sun, and I took some pictures in the anchorage before we got underway. Not a great sunrise picture, but the reflections of the trees in the water presented a good opportunity for the camera.

Sunrise at Mill Creek anchorage ...

Today on the Chesapeake was, thankfully, uneventful. Waters were mostly calm on the Bay. Where waves picked up, Clark steered to compensate, so we had a smooth ride.

I was naughty today and did my NY Times puzzles and then continued to play on my phone for a large portion of the day. I am addicted to a few games that I use to pass the time. Today was one of those days until we neared the Hampton / Norfolk area. Then, we had lots of naval ships to gawk at as we moved along.

As we came through the Hampton, Virginia area, Clark pointed to a container ship and said, "The AIS says we are on a collision course with that guy." We were very close to each other. So of course, I took a picture!

One can see from the picture above just how calm the waters were in this area. Later, a tug came out to meet this ship and help bring him in to dock. The tow looks so small and insignificant next to the behemoth ship. I wondered what it felt like to captain either one of those vessels. The responsibilities of either are enormous!

"CMA CGM" and tug ready to assist

At the same time this ship was coming in, another one was going out. After seeing next to no one on the Bay, this was quite a bit of excitement!

"WAN HAI A15" - Singapore

As I got ready to take the above picture, a helicopter came out to hover over the area. I wanted to get both the ship and the helicopter in the picture, but the helicopter took off before I got "my act together". The helicopter looked like a tiny gnat flying over the huge container ship!

Next we came upon something interesting floating in the water -- clearly anchored as it wasn't moving.

We found a few of these basically in a row including one pair of them. My guess - they are moorings for barges.

More of the same floating things

After that we got to see a number of naval vessels at dock as we came into Norfolk. We saw quite an interesting variety including air craft carriers and a hospital ship.

A multi-masted sail boat passed by while I was admiring the naval vessels, so I snapped a picture of that as well.

Clark said we had two choices to anchor tonight - Mill Creek in Hampton or Hospital Point in Norfolk. To me it was a coin toss with no real preference. We would anchor at Mill Creek around 3:00 or Hospital Point about an hour later. Ultimately, we opted for Hospital Point.

Building at Hospital Point says
"Welcome to Norfolk"

Anchoring here was a wee bit challenging. As we entered the anchorage, Clark said the depth was 27 feet. That requires a whole heck of a lot of anchor line to be put out. As we came in closer the numbers continued to drop until we ultimately anchored in around 15' of water. We had to scope it out as the depths were all over the place, and we had catamarans anchored there and crab pots to avoid.

Once the anchor was finally down, we had a lengthy discussion on wind directions, high and low tides, currents, etc. We ultimately decided to pull in some of our anchor line we had deployed because a crab pot appeared to be in our swing radius at longer scope. All told, it probably took a half hour to get settled for the night.

Pictures of the anchorage, i.e. the views from our boat ...

Shortly after we came in from dropping anchor, I heard a noise outside and got yet another show. A big ship came in guided by two tugs - although the one in the stern appeared to be towed not towing!

"Gladiator" coming in to dock

McAllister Tow on the hip

McAllister tug being towed behind

It was like a parade because after those vessels, a fancy, tourist-taking sailboat came in. The sailboat had numerous passengers on board enjoying a pleasure cruise.

"Nauticus" from Norfolk, VA

When the "show" was over, I decided to grab a bucket of water to get some salt off the boat. With all the salt spray, it had gotten to a point where I could not see out the windows, and the wood trim and handrails were caked with dried on salt. I am hoping it might last for a while as we travel inland waterways, i.e. ICW and rivers.

Later, as I was busy typing up today's blog entry, I noticed the sun reflecting off the buildings surrounding the anchorage, grabbed the phone, and took some sunsetting pictures.