June 17 2021
After nearly two weeks in Norfolk it was time to start my Chesapeake cruise in earnest. To exit Norfolk you go by the huge naval installations at Hampton Roads with very intimidating warships lining the channel. Luckily none were coming or going, or so I thought. A couple of miles before I was going to exit the channel and head North I had a hail on the radio from the Navy. A Navy security boat was off my bow with an even more intimidating gun pointed at my boat. There was an inbound submarine and they kindly asked me to make room and I very kindly complied.
This wasn’t my first encounter like this. On my training cruise in Florida we where going to transit a area normally not restricted but was that day as a submarine was doing a racetrack pattern in the area. They asked us to kindly to go East or West to go around. Yep, some kind folks with guns reinforced their suggestion and we took them up on the offer. That one (below) looks very similar to the one today.
The rest of the cruise was uneventful and I managed to arrive at slack current in Yorktown. Which is a good thing because the current is quite strong here. I plan to be in Yorktown for about a week to play tourist and see the sites. Tom and Nancy decided to drop by and look forward to hanging with them for a day or so. More updates on Yorktown and the area later.
