Life in the Slow Lane (The Pearl): July 22

Day 126 - Trying to Stay Cool

Waterside Marina

We went to the Nauticus museum this morning...the place is a little miss leading, we thought we had to pay for that ticket to be able to see the Hampton Road Naval Museum and the battleship Wisconsin. Not true..those two things are free. Nauticus is geared more for children and we could have skipped it completely. We enjoyed both the ship and naval information. We walked the decks of the Wisconsin first before it got too hot...glad we did, they closed it in the afternoon because of the excessive heat.

The waterfront has become quite busy this evening...music in the park above the marina and a jazz festival about a block away. We did walk around a little, but it was just too hot to enjoy the music. We decided watching TV on the cool boat was more appealing. The weather should be closer to normal by Sunday.

Town Point Park Mermaid

Nauticus and the Battleship Wisconsin

Battleship Wisconsin from the pier

What is Measure 13? It's the paint scheme that the Wisconsin currently wears. All Navy ships wear paint schemes designed to make it hard for an enemy to recognize the ship. Measure 13 is the Navy's normal peacetime color of haze gray--the standard gray in the 1990s. This paint scheme is the least visible under the widest range of light conditions.

The two chains running up the ship's bow connect to two anchors - each weighing 30,000 pounds. Each anchor chain is 1,080 feet long and weighs 35 tons. Each link in the chain weighs 120 pounds. One link of the chain could be an anchor for us.