Hampton Roads

As I begin typing, we are under way inbound on the historic James River, bound for Richmond. It is a side trip we've often contemplated but never gotten around to, and now turns out to be the right time. We have friends in the Richmond area, and we plan to get together for some appropriately distanced cocktails and conversation on Friday.

We had a nice four-night stay at the Hampton Public Piers, on a "fourth night free" deal that made it all quite reasonable. We stayed on the transient fixed face dock, which made pumping out this morning a simple matter of dragging the hose down to the end of the dock. We lingered until after lunch, to at least get past max ebb on the river. I would prefer to have a bit of current behind me, but we're at a point in the tide cycle where it will be against us most of the day.


Vector docked at Hampton Piers, as seen from Hampton University dining hall. Gull-wing roof is the VA Air & Space Center. Brew pub is in the hotel parking garage at right.

As soon as we were docked and connected to power, I started in immediately on reconditioning the batteries. This process took three full days, and involved doing three separate reconditioning cycles on each "pair" of batteries. That sounds simple, but our six-battery bank is not actually arranged as three "pairs" of batteries in series, even though that would be the most sensible arrangement.

For legacy reasons, the batteries are instead arranged as two groups of three batteries each, with the three batteries in each group being in parallel, and the groups then in series.  Making "pairs" meant disconnecting two batteries in each group for the duration of a conditioning cycle, then disconnecting a different two batteries in each group, and so on. Doing this without having to shut down and restart the entire electrical system each time meant leaving all the cables connected and just pulling the adapters off the battery posts, being careful not to short them on anything.


On my walk to the yacht club Saturday I passed this pair of duck family signs. I guess more than one family.

Once running on a single pair of batteries, I discharged them "fully," by which I mean as far as possible without a load bank and given that most of our equipment cuts out below a certain voltage. Once discharged, I fully recharged them at the highest possible rate, before starting an eight-hour "equalization" charge at a full 31 volts. We ran our 12-volt equipment on different batteries and turned off the 24-volt equipment during this phase to avoid damage.

I would have liked to be able to do this whole cycle twice for each pair, but unless I wanted to get up in the middle of the night to change charger settings or move battery wires, that would take another three days. Instead I did a partial discharge, full charge, and equalization cycle on the entire bank on the final day. I won't know how much, if any, capacity we recovered until we spend a few nights at anchor, but initial tests at the dock indicate there is at least some improvement, however minor.


Sure enough... more than one family.

Waiting for us at the office when we arrived were the packages I had ordered from McMaster-Carr and eBay. The first was a piece of "Starboard" HDPE to rebuild the base of the new nav light on the tender, and the other was a replacement for my defunct laptop keyboard. I had a lot of downtime waiting for batteries to do their thing, and I got the keyboard installed post haste, as the external one I've been using has been an annoyance.

There's a nice brew pub right next to the marina, Bull Island Brewing. Despite the handful of outside tables, the place did not feel safe or comfortable for table service, so Thursday I walked over stag and picked up a couple of sandwiches to eat on board. The could not let me walk out with a draft, but they have a machine that lets them can one on the spot, and I had them pour me a pint of their dark lager, which was very nice.


Yesterday these four sailboats came into the anchorage and spent the night rafted together. Asking a lot of one anchor.

Friday evening we strolled around town a little, ending up on Queens Way, which is the local restaurant row. The city has barricaded off a full block of the street so that the restaurants can use it for outside dining. We ate on the patio at Marker 20, which was decent, albeit with some cigarette smoke. This continues to be the downside of outside dining in Virginia, home of Philip Morris (among others) and the last bastion of restaurant smoking.

On the way back we strolled past the currently shuttered Virginia Air & Space Center, which is also the Nasa Langley Visitor Center. Right next door is the historic carousel. I would like to return some day when both of these are open, as well as the Hampton University Museum across the river. It's only a few steps from the carousel to the marina.


I did not get far on the dinghy light project, but I got some of the material cut.

The sandwich bread from Bull Island Brewing was so good that Sunday we decided to try their pizza, which I again picked up to go. It was quite good, actually. Considering it had been raining on and off all afternoon, I was happy to only have to walk a few steps to get it.

In addition to the package deliveries, battery reconditioning, and other projects, we also got all the recycling and trash off the boat, filled the water tank, and did all the laundry. And yesterday we put a scooter on the ground so I could make a Walmart run for provisions and some new window screen material - the project list, it turns out, is a leaky bucket.


The Big E, USS Enterprise, being dismantled at right. USS John F. Kennedy being completed at left.

As long as we had the scooter on the ground, at dinner time I rode across the bridge to the old town of Phoebus, now a neighborhood of Hampton, to pick up some Italian food at Mama Rosa's. On the way I rode through the Hampton University campus for a bit. One of the oldest historically black colleges in the nation, it can claim Booker T. Washington among many notable graduates. The aforementioned museum is the oldest and one of the best museums of the African diaspora, and I am sorry to have missed it.

Today's cruise has brought us through most of the industrial parts of the James. Early on we passed the Newport News Shipbuilding facility, where the USS Enterprise is in the midst of being scrapped even as the USS John F. Kennedy is being finished. A short while ago we passed what is left of the mothball ships of the James River Reserve Fleet, and we're now passing yet another navy base at Fort Eustis.


Ghost fleet of the James.

Update: We are anchored in a wide bend of the James River, with good protection from tonight's NE winds (map). As we approached the anchorage I could just see the tops of the idled roller coasters at Busch Gardens. A short distance away we can see the marina at the Kingsmill Resort; in different times we would tender over there and sample their restaurant. Across the river is the Surry nuclear power station. In the morning we will get an early start to get at least a little bit of tidal help before we have to push into it.