Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Hampton, VA – Calm Waters, Little Wind

Short Docks!
It was really cool the last couple of days in the morning, in the 40's. With the full enclosure on our boat, the cockpit warms up quickly and we’re in shirtsleeves during the day. After the morning run with Hoolie, we set out for Hampton at 8:30 in flat water and no wind, arriving at the Downtown Hampton Town Piers marina at 2:30, 44 nautical miles later.


The Taproom - look at the taps behind the bar!
 The marina is a good deal at $1.15/ft plus if you stay two nights, you get the third night free, hard to beat. As the name implies, it’s right downtown and only two blocks away is the Virginia Air and Space Museum which also houses a 3D-IMAX. There are plenty of restaurants in the area but we chose a bar which had 36 beers on tap! The restaurant was aptly named “The Taproom” and the food was good too, recommended! Hoolie likes the marina too with the nearby dog walk. One thing to look out for are the short docks, they only come half way by the side of the boat. You really should back in but we had already made our approach bow in so it’s a big step to get off the boat. At least the docks are floating, not the norm down here.

Enterprise has a car rental office about 100 feet from the marina, very convenient. Although the marina is right downtown, there’s no supermarket or Laundromat nearby so we’re renting a car for Thursday ($47/day) to get reprovisioned and to do laundry plus a visit to WalMart, Radio Shack, a pet store and WestMarine. A “got to have” list builds up over a couple of weeks. It would be nice to be a little warmer.

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