Hampton River Tuesday Paddle October 25, 2022 led by Jack.
Jack pulled this trip together at the last minute after the regular trip was cancelled. Sandra, Jack, Jill and me were the only ones paddling.
We started by wrestling with some wooden puzzles I made.
This was an interesting trip because of the large houses, boats, bridges, tunnels, expanses of open water.
We paddle by Hampton University and the Strawberry Banks.
After inspecting the construction of the new tunnel and bridge of Interstate 64 we paddle over the tunnel to get a look at Ft Monroe and the Chamberlain Hotel. Then we encountered a delightful pod of dolphins! I was lucky enough to get a picture of some of them.
We headed out to open water because it was so calm and there was little boat traffic. It gave me a chance to practice paddling in a perfectly straight line in open water. See the GPS trace in the album.
A police boat observed us but didn’t stop us. We paddled by a huge barge being pushed by a really big tug boat.
I was able to get a great series of shots of a great blue heron eating a fish.
After 6 miles Jack and Jill left the group. Sandra and I paddled to the NASA Air and Space Museum and the crab processors.
We continued to see more large sailing catamarans. We asked one of the skippers what was happening? He said they were gathering 125 large cats to sail to Bermuda November 1st! That was exciting!
We saw a beautiful 55 foot mono-hull sailboat from Arizona. We asked the couple how they got to Hampton. They said they had just sailed from Great Britain!
The bonus of this trip was to see the boatyard next to the ramp haul a huge trawler out of the water for service. I got photos and videos.
Thanks to Jack for saving the Tuesday Adventure!
Bill
Enjoy the pictures: