23 May to 1 June 2024

Beaufort, North Carolina to Portsmouth, Virginia, 36° 50′ 77″N, 76° 18′ 15″ W, 220nm, 2 days

In 2014, when we bought Pintail she was in a marina at Gosport, opposite Portsmouth in the UK. The journey there from London made weekend visits a bit tricky plus we couldn’t afford the south coast marina fees so after a month we moved her up to what would become her UK base at Essex Marina in the River Crouch. But it was from Portsmouth that we took our first baby steps of getting to know her and took her out for our first sail.

As we planned our time in the US, we were looking for a winter base in the south of the Chesapeake Bay and happened across a great deal in the marina in none other than Portsmouth, Virginia. We’ve got used to those colonists and their lazy place naming but here we found Portsmouth opposite Norfolk, down the road from Suffolk and only a short hop from Gloucester. There’s even an Isle of Wight nearby, albeit incongruously inland. But it felt kind of poetic that we should choose Portsmouth as Pintail’s winter home.

Leaving Beaufort to tackle the infamous Cape Hatteras we didn’t plan on stopping at Portsmouth. We needed to hit that magic 37° North latitude before 1 June to ensure we were covered by our insurance for named storms so we planned to press on north and explore the town when we got there in December.

When we woke to thick fog, it had been an inauspicious start to a passage whose reputation was already making us nervous. But by the time we had returned from breakfast and another stop at the hardware store, the fog had lifted and the tide had turned to ease our exit from Beaufort.

It would be an approximately 48 hour passage so, wanting to time our arrival in daylight, we decided to stop for lunch at Cape Lookout, the most southerly point of the barrier islands of the Outer Banks. These remote and wild sand islands reminded us a lot of one of our favourite spots in Portugal, Culatra, where only narrow strips of isolated sand protect you from the wilder Atlantic outside. Here the sands are all about recreation and there were hundreds of small boats out fishing and enjoying the water. The island are also home to more wild horses and to the famous Cape Lookout lighthouse. Built in 1859, after Union troops captured Beaufort during the Civil War, Confederate soldiers attempted to blow it up but failed.

Two moonrises and a sunrise later we had conquered Cape Hatteras, opting, as we have done for all notorious capes and waters, to do it in the most benign of conditions to keep ourselves and Pintail safe.

Better speed than we planned for meant that we arrived at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay at 3.30am. We had decided not to slow down so as to arrive hopefully ahead of a forecast storm and Stefan woke me early from my sleep to help him navigate what was going on. He had already spoke to the Coast Guard for advice on entering and to Moonshadow, another yacht who we had been playing cat and mouse with all the way up the coast. They were local and offered us to follow them in. But he also needed an extra pair of eyes to navigate the chaos of lights from land and sea. I also noticed he was wearing his wets and soon realised why!

As dawn broke the distant showers caught up with us and as we approached the bridge at the entrance to the Bay so did the many big commercial ships coming in and out.

We were very confused by the bridge. There appeared to be a gap in it with cranes on either side. Tired after 2 days at sea we wondered, had they not finished building it? Spanning the nearly 18 mile opening of the Bay, this is actually the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, a combination of bridge and tunnel to allow the big ships access and there are actually two sections of tunnel, each of a mile. We headed in through one of those gaps, not having to worry about Pintail’s mast!

And reaching the entrance to the Bay, we decided to check out Portsmouth after all. We were so close, it seemed silly not to. It would be good to see what it was like and if we didn’t like it, we could cancel our winter booking and find somewhere else.

Sailing down the Elizabeth River gave us a front row seat of everything the US Navy has to offer. It was an incredible sight as aircraft carrier after aircraft carrier after every naval vessel imaginable revealed itself.

We settled in the anchorage off Portsmouth, on the west side of the river, just outside Tidewater Marina where our berth for winter is booked.  On the eastern side was Norfolk, the first big metropolis we had seen so far in the States.

A very short dinghy ride across the river we decided to check it out too. It would, after all, be on our doorstep over winter.

We took a walk through the city to an intriguing neighbourhood called NEON District. An area that was once a strip of classic car dealers has been transformed into a vibrant arts district and renamed New Energy of Norfolk – NEON. It is full of artists’ studios and venues for music and comedy and also murals. There are murals around every corner, even on Bob’s Gun Shop. There was a mural celebrating the US armed forces and making statements from the Black Lives Matters movement.

From the anchorage, we also made sure to check out our chosen winter home of Portsmouth. The marina had everything we were going to need and the town promised to be very welcoming with enough going on to occupy us.

As well as all the shops and services we would need, it had a pretty historic old town.

Its murals also added another war to our list of US wars to learn about, the war of 1812! But Portsmouth’s citizens were gearing up to remember more recent conflicts and our stay coincided with Memorial Day so we went into town to watch the parade.

Memorial Day is a national holiday which honours US military personnel who have died serving their country and is marked in most big towns and cities with a parade. We joined the local people lining the main street. Local politicians made use of the gathering crowd to canvas support for upcoming local elections.

The parade bemused us a little. There were definitely representations from the various military services but also the Mayor, canvassing for votes too, the scout troops

and some high school bands complete with rather lacklustre and pompomless cheerleaders! It somehow lacked the kind of solemnity we are used to from Remembrance Sunday in the UK.

It was, however, impossible not to be infected by this little girl’s enthusiasm for the parade.

Her enthusiasm wasn’t dampened even when the heavens opened. Our commitment to the US Armed Services did not, however, extend to getting drenched by the heavy rain and we beat a hasty retreat back to the boat ready to leave to reach that important 37° North by 1 June…