Hanging out in Hampton

So we're chilling out here in Hampton now that the weather has come off a high of 81 F this week. Great spot to get the boat readied for the push south. There's a Halloween Bash at the Virginia Air and Space Museum Saturday night and the boaters here are ready for trick or treaters so we're staying until Sunday morning to keep our little goblins happy.

The Caribbean 1500 heads out Nov. 1 and the Bahamas 900 is also gathering. On top of that, there is a big homecoming football game at Hampton U so it's busy here. Kate the dockmaster rocks. Kathy and Dave on Orion have taken us under their wing and have helped us enormously with passage planning, touring the sites, figuring out where to do laundry, etc.

People here are awesome. We've also hung out a bit with Jock on Unleaded, a fellow Port Dover boater.

We're planning on heading out Sunday, All Hallow's Eve in the morning, with a hoped for arrival that night in Great Bridge on the ICW. Then we hope to get to Beaufort sometime at the end of the week and possibly jump out on the ocean for a run to Charleston.

Our friends Art and Linda Alyea are once again heading this way so we may have a visit from them.

This is a cool spot. Hampton is redeveloped with an interesting downtown, and a decent bus system that we took last night to the cinema. We were only a couple of miles from Langley Air Force Base. We can also hear some interesting chatter on Channel 16 on the VHF from warships hailing small vessels in their way.

We stopped at the Virginia Air and Space Museum Wednesday - fantastic museum. We had a blast. The kids did a unit on flight before going and had a ball at the museum.

Today we had a good school day and Aidan has worked off and on all day helping Scott install a solar panel - quite complicated actually. And expensive.
It's a 90-watt panel that should help us keep things running with its 7.5 amps - enough to keep our fridge cold and maybe run a fan or two. We also have the gas generator to augment our energy needs.

It's amazing really how much power stuff needs, computers, lights, fridge, Aidan is going to chart our consumption next week and I know it will be eye opening.

We're also pretty careful with our water - we can live comfortably on 80 gallons of water over two or so weeks but boy do we watch it. Our head uses fresh water (and electricity) as well, so we're trying to track our usage of that. We have two jerry cans now for water as well but will likely need more once we get to the islands. We have five diesel gerry cans (25 gallons worth), one gas can, the gas generator and one extra 10 lb tank of propane lashed together against a board on our deck.

All of this is lined up colourfully on our deck. We'd stand out on Lake Erie but down here, it's normal. Some boats strap on kayaks and bikes. We have an inflatable kayak tucked in the cockpit locker. Our liferaft is lashed to the foredeck as is our inflated dinghy.

We're definitely getting into the cruising groove.