The first real sign that you are approaching Cape Henry at the mouth of the Chesapeake is when the cloud of insects descends on the boat. Some are interesting, and beautiful, like this large dragonfly:
Unfortunately, the largest number of the invading hoard are bitting black flies, that need extermination. Their favorite place to grab a bite is your ankle, and they go right through heavy cotton socks! Dozens of them landed on the boat while we were still 15 miles offshore.
Karen on the hunt for the evil invading flies, hopefully killing them before they can get in their painful bites. She is a traditionalist, and uses the old-fashioned flyswatter.
Bill prefers the high-tech approach with the electric hand held bug zapper.
Other signs you are approaching the bay is you see strange vessels on the water.
A US Navy hovercraft out on maneuvers. I am not sure exactly what its real mission is. It seems to be little more than a floating engine to move really fast. We clocked it on our radar at almost 50 knots.A Navy submarine is way, way bigger than it looks. If you look really closely, you’ll see two tiny little people on the conning bridge. Until they are well out to sea they travel with a pack of small patrol boats to keep everybody at least 500 yards away.
Strange flying machines, doing strange flying stuff are also common.
The unmistakable shape of the V-22 OspreyIf practice makes perfect, the Navy fly-boys must be pretty good. they spend ALL day in the air here in Norfolk performing exercises like this…
Despite the insect invasion, we are happy to be here. We’ll be making our way up the bay where we hope to visit some friends and family and do the tourist thing in Washington.
Here are some of the pictures we took underway that went along with the posts from the trip…
Where’s the rest of it??? A shark made off with most of this Almaco jack.A 38 pound amberjack. These are the toughest fighting fish I have ever tangled with. They are strong, fast, and have amazing endurance. On twenty pound class tackle, boating one this size is a challenge!A 30 pound gag grouper. Not the knock-down-drag-out fight of the amberjack, but much better tablefare.
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