Thursday, July 31 – The last 11 days have been quiet in Norfolk.

We spent Monday the 21st doing chores and work at the boat. One of those chores was cleaning the sea strainers for the two air conditioning units that we run most frequently (pilot house and downstairs). The first strainer we pulled out had a small fish and a couple of weird little gelatinous balls. The balls didn’t just fall out when inverted, but they did come out with a little bit of shaking. Then we pulled out the second one. It was completely full of those gelatinous balls. Very few fell out when inverted and shaken; we had to use a scraper tool to get them out. And it did take a surprising amount of scraping to get them all out. We’ve never seen anything like this before.

Keith finished his science fair project, so he was now officially done with school work (though Christi still had grading to do).

On Tuesday, July 22, Eric and Keith flew to San Diego in the early afternoon. Christi spent the morning getting them ready to go. In the afternoon, she puttered around the boat. It was a particularly colorful sunset.

And a particularly colorful sunrise on the 23rd.

In the evening, Christi walked west along Little Creek at sunset. It was a lovely walk, but it was so hot out!

For the rest of the week, Christi spent most of her days doing “deep cleaning” type chores around the boat, such as cleaning out lockers and defrosting the freezer. She spent most of her evenings with Karen and her family. On Thursday, Karen took her to an Italian restaurant called Ynot. The food was phenomenal.

And so were the desserts!

Meanwhile, Eric and Keith had a super busy time in San Diego. On Wednesday, they were jet lagged and tired from the flight. They went to the convention center to pick up their passes for the Comic Convention (Comicon). Since downtown was a zoo during Comicon, they utilized public transit as a practice run for the days that they’d be attending the show. They attended Comicon on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, so they had three very long (but exciting!) days in a row where they walked at least 5-miles each day. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, they took care of “life chores.” On Tuesday night, they took a red eye back to Norfolk.  

Yesterday (Wednesday), Eric and Keith’s flight arrived around 0900. Karen needed her car back, so Eric rented a car at the airport. They were both very jet lagged, so they both took naps before we returned the car to Karen (although Keith apparently had not napped long enough as he fell asleep again in the car). On the way to Karen’s, we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant called Costa del Mar, which was very authentic. The decor inside was cute — it looked like a beach palapa restaurant, which were common in Mexico.

Christi ordered pupusas, which we’ve never seen on a menu in Mexico before. We believe they were a Central American dish, not Mexican. They were basically a flatbread stuffed with cheese. They were simple and yummy.  

Today, Thursday, Eric and Keith were still feeling tired and off-kilter, so we laid low at the boat all day. There was a giant storm forecast to hit in the middle of the night. The humidity was off the charts — the air was so thick it felt almost like syrup, which only added to the lethargy Eric and Keith were feeling. The air was also eerily still, with no breeze at all.

In the evening, Christi went back over to Karen’s. Eric and Keith went for an evening walk. When they got back to the marina, they saw the Thursday marina social was going on, so Eric joined. On the drive back from Karen’s, Christi saw silent lightning in the distance, indicating the storm was coming soon. Christi also joined the social when she returned from Karen’s. At this point, there was still zero wind. Suddenly a very strong, cold wind started blowing. Given the ferocity of the wind, we knew the storm would hit soon. Everyone rushed back to their boats. When the rain hit, it was with such intensity that we had to dog the doors and tighten the portholes to make them all watertight. It rained for several hours.