Category Archives: Cruising Life

Describes an experience regarding the boating lifestyle of our travel.

Ocean View Beach, Norfolk, Virginia

Posted on by
1

Saturday, August 2, 2025 — we had a quiet morning onboard. For lunch, we went to a Japanese restaurant called Fuji Hana Sushi, which was attached to the Magnuson Hotel. It was good value for the money and was run by a nice Japanese family.

Even though we were a short walk from Ocean View beach, we hadn’t gone yet. We’d heard that the beach was popular with families with young children as the waves were usually small. First of all, it was in the bay, so the waves coming in from the ocean weren’t usually as big as the waves on the Virginia Beach oceanfront. And there were breakers, which kept the waves from hitting the shore.

Since we were carrying gear, we drove over to one of the marinas on the north side of Little Creek, where we met up with the family on a boat named Blue Heeler that we’d met at the Latino Music Festival. From their marina, we made the short walk north to the beach.

The marina was behind an assisted living facility
Continue reading →

Quiet Week in Norfolk for Christi While Eric and Keith Were In San Diego

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Continue reading →

Waterman’s with Miss Roxy and Portsmouth with Bigger Boat

Posted on by
Reply

Sunrise on Wednesday, July 9, 2025:

Eric’s morning chore was to grease the windlass. We’d replaced our windlass last year before we left San Diego with an updated version of the same model. Eric was pleased to find that the updated model was easier to service than the last one. It was easy to take apart — just one screw and 2-bolts. This model also doesn’t need the oil changed; our old one did. 

In the afternoon, we went to Virginia Beach to visit Miss Roxy. On the way, we stopped at West Marine to pick up some more parts. West Marine didn’t take as long as we’d anticipated, so we had some extra time to kill. We decided to visit the famous Oceanfront boardwalk. We parked at a public parking garage that Karen had told us was the cheapest parking garage/lot in the area.

Continue reading →

The Moses Myers House and Gourmet Grilled Cheese in Norfolk, Virginia

Posted on by
Reply

Continued… From Adeline’s room, we moved into the part of the slaves quarters that was above the utility room. The signs said that the Myers had dozens of slaves over the decades, but didn’t say how many slaves the household typically had at any given time. The guides did tell us, but we don’t remember now. But we do remember they always had several, not only one or two. There was a big binder full of information that we didn’t read. Some of the displays on the walls were bills of sale for the various people. One display showed a bill of sale for a mother and daughter. In the bankruptcy inventory, they were identified as “washer and daughter.” John Myers did allow at least one of his slaves to purchase his freedom. We didn’t go into the portion of the slaves quarters over the kitchen.

View of the back yard from the slave’s quarters. What is now a parking garage was once a creek.
Continue reading →