Friday, May 12, 2017

Downtown Hampton Public Piers - at a dock in a pouring rain

You will see herb gardens and other plants at some marinas, this marina has a good selection
What happened to summer? When we started north from Florida in 85 degree weather I thought it would be a hot ride, not so! The high today was only in the 60's, about the same as yesterday but with more rain which is why we decided to push for Hampton instead of stopping at the free dock or a nearby marina.

This is 1/2 of the selection
We had called ahead to Hampton and found out that the dockhand was leaving after 5:00 pm. When you dock at Hampton, you really do want help. Their finger docks are only 1/2 length so you need someone up front (bow in) to grab your lines and keep you in the slip, especially since there's always wind and usually current from the river.

A closeup of two of the herb plants
Knowing all this and seeing a 4:40 pm ETA at Hampton, I was rushing to make good time to arrive before 5:00 pm. In do so, I got wrapped up in moving forward so much that I made some errors in judgment in going forward. For one thing, when waiting for a bridge opening you ought to wait in line and not barge ahead of other boats. I was impatient (watching the clock ticking down) and when one boat I thought hesitated at one bridge too long, I pulled out to pass, not the right thing to do at a bridge with limited maneuverability.,  I also passed other boats waiting for the same bridge, also not good. No harm was done except for showing bad manners and I'll try to check myself in the future on that score.

And there's lettuce too
However, we were lucky to get in on Thursday. Today was a total washout. Lots of wind and lots of rain, mostly all day long. It is so much better at a dock with power in such conditions. Saturday will be worse according to the forecast but then it will start to warm up again on Sunday. It looks like we'll be here until Tuesday morning waiting for better weather.

0 comments: