We are anchored in Willoughby Bay, Norfolk, Virginia

We arrived here about 9:30am this morning and are very much enjoying the continuous military show.  All around us, we've got aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, all flavors of helicopters and airplanes, and even a rescue boat.  To a military history nut, this is just heaven!

The ride down here was easy last night, and we arrived in front of the Chesapeake Bay entrance at about 5:30am.  Going up the Bay, however, the wind turned onto our nose and the wind picked up substantially.  The Chesapeake has short, sharp waves that can be uncomfortable and these were no exceptions.  Fortunately, we didn't have far to go to our selected anchorage, though we did have to wait for the Aegis cruiser, USS Normandy, to pass by.  The fact that we have right-of-way as a sailboat didn't seem to carry much weight, hahahaha...  :)  In all seriousness, we slowed down and didn't go anywhere near the channel when the warship was passing through.

Here is the course we took:

The wind was directly off our stern most of the way and very weak, so we motored pretty much the whole way.  The seas were almost completely flat once again, which made for a fast passage.

The reason we chose this particular anchorage is that we'll get to spend some time with our dear friend, Jason Rusk, who is stationed somewhere around here.  We've already made contact with him - he doesn't have duty tomorrow, so we'll get to see him then!

Rebecca got some surprise birthday presents this morning, though Reece told her all about them yesterday afternoon!  Jeannette made a special breakfast, just for her, then they had fresh tuna steaks for a late afternoon dinner.  The steaks were a treat from some guys fileting fish at the Sunset Marina in Ocean City.  Later this evening, Rebecca, Reece and I took the dinghy over to the shore for some ice cream.  Not a bad birthday, I hope!

Kinda tired tonight, so we are shutting down soon.  More updates tomorrow!