An Awesome Sight
Wednesday 12 May 2021
Welcome to winter in Virginia! Boy was it ever cold, windy and damp today. As Gloria mentioned we had already decided last night to postpone our departure from Portsmouth for 24 hours and we were happy not to have to head out this morning. We used the extra time at the dock to do some routine maintenance on the boat. We did an oil change and replaced both the water pump / alternator belt and the refrigeration drive belt on the engine. However, the most exciting event this morning was the passage of the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier down the Elizabeth River right next to our marina. We had heard that this was due to happen and our neighbors Vicki and Jeff texted 10 minutes before it arrived to give us a heads up. It would be impossible not to be impressed by the sight of this enormous ship moving by. There were two tugs at the bow, dwarfed by the deck of the carrier and three tugs at the stern. We were close enough to wave at the seamen on board. Unfortunately it was raining and not great light, but an exciting moment nonetheless.
The USS Harry S Truman was launched in September 1996 and is 1052 feet long, 257 feet wide and 244 feet high (equivalent to a 24 story building) and can travel at 30 knots. It carries 6,250 seamen and 90 fixed wing aircraft and helicopters.
This afternoon our boat maintenance continued, but not on our boat. Gloria told the story yesterday of Jeff who inadvertently put gasoline into his diesel tank. When we asked him how his syphoning efforts had gone he told us that this approach had been unsuccessful and he was going to get an Uber to Autozone and buy a fuel pump. Well it turns out we have a fuel transfer system that we built to “polish” our diesel tanks and so we brought this out and managed to help Jeff pump out the 20 gallons of gasoline diesel mix that he had in his tank.
In the late afternoon the sun finally reappeared and I have to say the world looks like a different place in the sunshine. Let’s hope the warming trend holds up as predicted. Tonight we are running our Espar diesel hot air heating system.
p.s. I can’t wait to see the ship named after our most recent past President … The “Donald J. Trump” will be a 22 foot pump-out vessel … “draining the swamp”
Mike
36 49.867 N, 76 17.760 W
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