Monday, October 24, 2011

CAVU day, beautiful

This is a CAVU day....beautiful
As our good friend Ron would say....This is a CAVU day! Ron is an air traffic controller and CAVU, his boat name, stands for Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited. So, yes, it was a CAVU day as we pressed on towards Norfolk. VA. We departed Jackson Creek at 0800 and arrived Willoughby Bay at 1500 where we dropped anchor just off the stern of our buddy boat, IP460 Cutter Loose.  We always prefer to come into this bay rest and then move into Norfolk or Portsmouth. It is only another 8-9 miles, but after a full day of powering down the bay, we prefer to NOT press on into the congested river with all its commercial shipping and Naval activity. This anchorage is calm and 10 feet deep everywhere. It is also a hub of Naval Air activity with helicopters, and planes working the area. It is exciting to see our servicemen doing what they do best, and I am proud to know a few personally. The excitement of the day was seeing some special ships... one a UFO from the Navy doing 33 knots (see photo below!), another world famous sailing expedition ship arriving from the Northwest Passage, and a Navy guided missile destroyer. Arriving in Norfolk is always exciting and challenging and on a CAVU day, it could not be better. The evening was topped off with a gourmet dinner aboard Cutter Loose with Eric's high school classmate Jim and wife Chris.

Photos of the day...
Wolf Trap Lighthouse, VA
NAVY UFO....we guess? It was doing 33 knots, northbound
Look at the special radar sides and check out that wake!

How about this show of power, a guided missile destroyer, the USS Ross

Then came sailing vessel PANGAEA, the world explorer
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We dropped anchor in Willoughby Bay and enjoyed the helicopter fly overs
Radeen, Hayden, with Patrica and Eric, our friends on IP460 Cutter Loose

What a great day afloat with wonderful friends! Traveling by sailboat is easy, safe and peaceful, especially when the weather is good like these past three days. Tonight the winds are to build to 20+ after midnight and we need to move into a more protected area tomorrow. We live by the weather....that is the life of a boater.

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