After our passage from Cape May, we pulled into the nearest harbor, a spot called Hampton Flats tucked behind Old Point Comfort. There was one other boat anchored out, an Island Packet (which we recognized since that was one of the boats we'd considered to purchase). We'd barely gotten our anchors down when a dinghy pulled up to Windom.
Vern and Kathy, on Andante, had noticed we had a Caliber -- that was one of the boats they'd considered, before buying their Island Packet. They also had noticed our home port of Boulder, CO. "We just had some friends from Boulder spend a week with us on our boat, " Kathy told us over drinks. "They used to have a boat, a Hans Christian 43, but they sold it after a year."
Britt and I simultaneously said, "Hans and Ursula!" Kathy's jaw dropped; Vern said, "No way! You can't know them!" It was a great case of small-worldism, or maybe it was just that there aren't too many people in Boulder who go cruising, so we all know each other. We'd met Hans and Ursula through mutual friends, who forwarded us their emailed cruising stories, and after they returned to Boulder they kindly answered the dozens of cruising-related questions we peppered them with.
We chatted for a while, mostly about the approaching storm. Hurricane Dennis was heading toward the coast of North Carolina, and a high pressure system was north of us. The first was rotating counterclockwise and the second clockwise, and we were right where the two weather systems would mesh together, squeezing out some hellacious northeasterly winds, according to the forecasts. We agreed that we'd keep in touch on the VHF radio the next day, and help each other if we had problems.
Britt and I tumbled gratefully into bed (since we'd each gotten only a few hours sleep the night before) in calm, quiet conditions. At about 1:30 the next morning, we were awoken by a gale. Ka-wham! Windom shook and shimmied, the rigging rattled and the lines slapped. We took a few bleary sights to reassure ourselves that the anchors were holding, but we were so tired that it wasn't too hard to fall back asleep even with the storm howling around us.
When we arose at a more civilized hour, things hadn't changed much, nor did they change all day. Northeast winds between 30 and 40 knots -- we saw a few gusts of 42, and Andante reported 46 knots on one of our radio calls. Although our little anchorage was moderately protected, the wind knocked us around a bit, and there were quite a few whitecaps. But we were thankful we weren't out on the ocean, where the buoy reports were of 20-foot waves, or even the open Chesapeake. We laid low all day, listening to the weather radio, checking with Andante now and then, adding chafing gear to our anchor lines, watching that we weren't dragging. We also carefully lowered the outboard onto the dinghy; if Hurricane Dennis turned in our direction, we wanted to be prepared to evacuate. (Although if things got too bad too quickly, getting to shore in the dinghy would be terrifying!)
Things were a little calmer the next day. Vern and Kathy invited us to join them and some friends who lived in the nearby military marina, Suzanne and Harley, for lunch. Afterward, we all drove over to nearby Hampton Marina, which was in a more protected spot on the Hampton River, to check it out. Vern and Kathy decided they'd move that afternoon; Britt and I wanted to see the Fort Monroe museum, so we decided we'd come join them the next day.
After we toured the museum, we went to the nearby historic Chamberlin Hotel for a happy hour drink. The television in the bar was tuned to The Weather Channel, which of course sailors consider the most interesting thing on the tube! Lots of footage of storm damage on the Carolina coast, and flooding in nearby Hampton, Norfolk, and Newport News. The wind was driving more water into the bay, and the tides were two to three feet higher than normal. Since Hampton's pretty much at sea level, this put several roads two to three feet underwater. (We'd noticed sandbags piled at the doorways of many of the buildings we walked by that day.) We also learned, much to our dismay, that Dennis had stopped moving eastward and was drifting back toward the west -- and then the hotel power went out. Before we headed back to our boat, we looked over the hotel balcony out at the shipping channel and the mouth of the Chesapeake. Wow. The surf was definitely up.
Tuesday night was more or less a rerun of Monday night, and Wednesday morning still more of the same. We listened religiously to NOAA weather radio, and plotted the storm's position on graph paper. Dennis was heading back in our direction, but had weakened to a "mere" tropical storm. Rain and wind was expected for the rest of the week, though, and we wanted to do some more tourist stuff but didn't relish the idea of wet dinghy rides and miserable bike rides, so we prepared to move to the Hampton City Marina.
Maneuvering Windom so that Britt could pick up the first anchor to be lifted was pretty tough in the 30-knot winds. The bow would swing around wildly and put us beam to the wind, and moving slowly was impossible since only a strong burst of speed would overcome the wind to give us enough steerage to point in the direction we wanted. Britt was getting the Danforth first, which is not on the windlass so he has to do it by hand, and with the boat fighting the wind I was not too surprised that it was taking him longer than usual. Suddenly he stopped what he was doing and motioned me to come forward. "Look what we caught!"
The anchor was dangling just out of the water, and looped around it was an inch-thick braided metal cable. No wonder it had taken so long to lift the anchor out of the water! Now we had to get it the rest of the way on board. First Britt tried using the chain rake we keep up front to push the cable off, but the rubber handle slipped off and the tool fell in the water. I grabbed a boat hook and handed it to him, and he tried again. After he snagged the cable with the hook, I lowered the anchor away from it, and he pushed the cable back into the water.
I returned to my position at the wheel as he finished raising the Danforth and prepared to pull in the CQR anchor. Since he was using the windlass, and since I'd gotten a little better at working with the wind, this went much faster. At least, it went faster up until the point where Britt suddenly dropped the chain, grabbed his head in his hands, and turned back toward me with an exasperated expression. It wasn't too hard to read his lips and see he was saying something that I'd better not repeat here in case children are reading this, and it wasn't too hard to figure out what had happened!
Not only had the CQR also snagged a cable, it was a different cable! This was an even thicker and heavier communications cable. Even if Hurricane Dennis had hit us with full force, we would not have gone anywhere. Britt hooked the cable with the boat hook again, and I lowered the anchor to free it, but Britt couldn't slide the cable off the hook because it was so large and heavy. Since we were no longer anchored, the wind was pushing Windom sideways with great force -- the only thing keeping us in place was Britt holding the cable with the boat hook! He had no choice but to drop the hook into the water, sacrificing another tool to the anchor gods. Oh well -- boat hooks are much cheaper than anchors! I ran back to the wheel to get us under control and out of that cable-infested anchorage. (Next time this happens, if it does, Britt plans to pass a rope under the cable to hold it up, so that it can be dropped more easily when the anchor is free.)
Fortunately, to get to the marina we only had to scootch around the causeway of the Hampton-Norfolk Bridge-Tunnel, so we didn't have to get out in the big waves. The wind did its best to push us out of the Hampton River channel, but as we got closer to Hampton things got more protected, so we approached the dock in "only" 20-knot winds. Vern was there to give us a hand with the docklines, and we quickly got situated. One nice thing about this marina is that they have floating docks. Since the storm has caused high tides as much as three feet higher than normal, many of the surrounding non-floating docks are underwater at high tide! It's bizarre to see boats tied to pilings with no apparent way of getting out to them.
Tropical Storm Dennis is still hanging around like a least-favorite relative who just won't take the hint and go home. It's rainy and windy, and high tide floods the nearby streets twice a day. We visited the Virginia Air and Space Center, which also has exhibits on the history of the town of Hampton, and plan to go back tonight to see the IMAX film "Everest". We need to do some shopping, too -- new fuel filters and a replacement boat hook are on our shopping list, as you might guess!
We've got about three weeks to get back to Annapolis, so when the weather gives us a break, we'll probably start meandering northward. We'd like to see some of the Lower Bay now, and then when we go south again to take the Intercoastal Waterway to Florida, we'll see some more of it. We'll probably come by Hampton again, too -- just to see what it looks like when it's not underwater!