Depart: Hampton Public Piers 8:00
Arrive: Newport News, Deep Creek Anchorage in front of James River Marina, 10:20
Distance: 18 nm
While Clark was busy looking into cruise planning to determine our next stop, I got a Facebook message from Kenny on "Daybreak" who said he was heading for Deep Creek and we should "come on down". I told Clark, and Deep Creek suddenly became today's destination. Since we planned to join up with Kenny to visit the Mariners' Museum, we got an early-for-us start out of the marina.
Leaving Hampton, Virginia, we saw the usual military ships at dock,
and when we reached the James River Bridge, we came upon one under way. The bridge is a lift bridge with 44 feet of vertical clearance when closed. This vessel called to have it open. The bridge went up in a hurry. Clark exclaimed, "He could stop the traffic that fast?!"
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| USAV Brandy Station passing by |
As we entered Deep Creek, we passed by several boats with workers digging up shells from the river floor. We later discovered they were pulling in oysters by the bushel load.
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| Pulling up oysters with specialized oyster harvesting tongs |
We anchored in the creek very close to wear the oyster harvesters brought their bounty to be sent off for processing. Since his dinghy launches so much faster than ours, Kenny offered to come to our boat to collect us for our outing. As we headed back to his boat, he swung by the oyster works in progress to get a better look at their operations.
One of the
men on the crew was particularly talkative as we swung by on Kenny’s dinghy. He
told us that they had collected 280 bushels of oysters in 2 hours of
harvesting this morning. He also said that the oysters are a foot deep on the river bottom. His own boat, he told us, "... blew its engine - a common problem for this industry".
Two tractor trailers collected the oysters via a conveyor belt. The workers shoveled the oysters into a bucket; when full it was swung to shore to dump the contents onto the conveyor belt then swung back to be filled again.
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| Shovel, swing, dump, return, repeat, ... |
Video of the process ...
Kenny's friend and co-pilot for the trip north from Florida, Dewey, greeted us at the dock. Kenny had a loaner car from the friend owning the dock where Daybreak was tied, and we promptly set off for our visit to The Mariners' Museum only 2.6 miles away.
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| Entrance to The Mariners' Museum |
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| Weather Vane |
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| Ev, Kenny, and Dewey ready for a tour |
Upon entry, we found the museum has an entrance charge - $1.00 per person. Dewey picked up the tab for us all! Thanks Dewey!
The museum has 14 sections of displays. Some I found more interesting than others. Four of the sections are dedicated to the USS Monitor and the Ironclad Revolution. We spent a good two hours on this part of the museum. In the 1970s the Monitor was discovered sunken off Cape Hatteras just about exactly where crew said she went down.
The Mariner's Museum has dedicated staff preserving the remains of the ship and its contents. Many artifacts and the remains of two crewmen have been recovered. Preservation work continues, so some displays are replicas of the original until preservation processing is completed.
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| The hull of the ironclad ship |
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| The actual propeller |
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| The top deck of the ironclad |
At some point, Kenny said he was ready to hit the cafeteria, so we took a lunch break.
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| Outdoor seating (behind railing) for lunch (Ev and Dewey are seated behind the railing) |
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| View of Lake Maury reservoir next to the museum |
For a $1.00 entrance fee museum offered, it offered so much history and information, it was hard to take it all in. I had to pick and choose where to spend my time. A section I enjoyed very much contained numerous models of ships of all sorts of vintages.
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| Fireboat Fire Fighter served 1938 to 2010 |
Clark liked the model engine displays.
I looked for and found a model of a ship from the Holland America Line. The Rotterdam was on display. I was excited to see this ship because its sister ship, the Veendam, carried my mother from South Hampton, England after WWII to New York (Hoboken, NJ actually) in April 1947. She met my father in Pennsylvania in July of that year, and they married 3 months later.
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| Rotterdam - model ship |
By 3:00 my feet had started to complain. Dewey and I decided we had seen enough for one day. We headed for the outside area where we had eaten lunch. A short while later Clark appeared and said what Dewey and I had been wondering, "Where's Kenny?" Dewey suggested that Kenny might be in the International Small Craft Center. Clark said, "Where was that?" We told him, and he took off to do more exploring. Dewey and I did not follow!
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| Simokon, Commuter, 1929 |
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| Mestre Manoel Matos, Monica. |
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| Ada, Steam Launch, 1986 used in New Hampshire |
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| Italian Gondola |
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| Asymmetrical Boat designed to accommodate the gondolier |
For 25 years, the boat named April Fool held the record as the smallest yacht to cross the Atlantic Ocean. This single-handed, 6' x 5' sailboat sailed from Casablanca to Florida in 1968.
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| April Fool |
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| 1935 Chris-Craft from Michigan - Sue |
After calling it a day at the museum, we headed back to the boats. Clark invited Dewey to see Sunset Delight, so Kenny ferried all of us over in his dinghy. Later, Kenny and Dewey planned to go out to dinner with the owner of the house where they docked. We got invited to come along.
Linda, whose boat is named Wooyon, stayed at Faro Blanco for a short while. when they were there, I saw the boat, but we never met the owners. She drove us to a restaurant called "Smoke" for BBQ and such. Clark fretted while we were out that he had forgotten to turn on the anchor light as we would be returning after sunset.
Once we finished eating, he was anxious to get going back to the boat. Although the sun had set by the time we got back, the boat was still visible via surrounding lights. We were anchored just off the James River Marina. Kenny dropped us off and said goodnight. He and Dewey planned to leave bright and early in the morning as they travel home to their wives.
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