Day 250 - Rain or Shine — Captain Father John

Miles cruised 0, fuel purchased $0, slip fee $24, daily high temperature 77°f

We attended the 132 annual Portsmouth Memorial Day Parade. When a city claims to have the longest continuous Memorial Day parade in the US you are guaranteed to get a parade rain or shine. They do not want to miss a year and have to start counting at one year again. We stood in the rain next to the reviewing stand on High Street watching the parade. The bands always play when they pass the reviewing stand.

The bands played in the rain.

We had an epiphany with our cruise planning today. We came to realize that Williamsburg and Yorktown are less than a one hour drive from Portsmouth. Instead on moving the boat to Yorktown and renting a car to go site-seeing we will rent a car in Portsmouth and visit those places. Our slip is paid through June 6. No reason to pay another slip fee and still have to rent a car. Our likely schedule will be Williamsburg on Tuesday, Yorktown on Wednesday, shopping on Thursday and cast off for the Chesapeake on Friday.

The three ducklings we saw four weeks ago are still here. We do not see the mother but they are staying together and growing.

Portsmouth has lovely historic district. This house was built in 1792 and has been beautifully maintained.

The Portsmouth Naval Hospital was established in 1830. It is the first naval hospital and stands on 112 acres. The staff of over 4,000 professionals provide services to over 430,000 active and retired military personnel as well as their dependents. The hospital trains and develops its own staff.

Bonus photo – this photo reminds of Ellen Sholtes boat named “Piece of Ship”.

Carl (Chef) Wooden – quote of the day.

“The ocean is a central image. It is the symbolism of a great journey.”
Enya

Enya is wealthier than Adele, has sold more records than One Direction and lives in a castle next door to Bono.

Yet despite her phenomenal success, Irish singer-songwriter Enya has never been snapped stumbling out of a nightclub. Nor has she ever dated a fellow star or been involved in a bitchy celebrity catfight.

As one pal admitted: “She’s not exactly a barrel of laughs. You wouldn’t go for a few pints with her.”

Despite selling more than 75million albums globally, the single, 54-year-old — whose £91million fortune was last week revealed to make her the richest woman in British and Irish music history — has never even toured as a solo artist.

Instead, she spends her days as a recluse. Only spotted out in public twice in the past decade, she hides away in her vast Victorian home near Dublin, refusing to respond to fan letters.

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Dale provides the detail on the Portsmouth lightship.

Portsmouth (LV-101), a floating lighthouse, was built in 1915 by Pusey & Jones. She first served as Charles in the Chesapeake Bay outside Cape Charles, Virginia from 1916 until 1924. After that assignment Portsmouth served just over a year as the relief ship for other lightships in her district. She was then moved to Overfalls, Delaware, where she was stationed from 1926 to 1951 as Overfalls. Prior to becoming part of the US Coast Guard crews on lightships were hired wherever they were stationed and crew members did not need to have any particular skills. They served extended tours, but could quit at any time without warning and be taken ashore. In 1939 when the United States Lighthouse Service was absorbed into the United States Coast Guard she was reclassified WAL-524, but still kept a station name on her hull. During World War II the vessel was not armed, however many other lightships were. In 1951 LV-101/WAL 524 was reassigned to Stonehorse Shoal, Massachusetts, where she served until decommissioned in 1963. The lightship then sat in harbor at Portland, Maine, until her fate had been decided. On 3 September 1964 LV-101 was donated to the City of Portsmouth, Virginia, to become a part of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum.

The Portsmouth lightship is encased in concrete.