VICTOR visits in VIRGINIA for NAVY MUSEUM / BATTLESHIP WISCONSON and NAVY RIVER CRUISE

We begin Friday knowing that this will end our sight seeing for a few days, by going to Norfolk! Views of Battleship Wisconsin in dock by the museum with city, Norfolk, in the background. We decided to take an inner harbor boat ride aboard the Navy's, Victory Rover. They do a two hour narrated tour of the harbor, river and the Naval base. Before boarding the Victory Rover, we toured the Battleship Wisconsin and the Nauticus museum because we arrived early. The tour of the Wisconsin was interesting. While on board we witnessed a retirement ceremony and I (Gary)talked with one of the volunteers. Very interesting! Navy personnel preparing for the ceremony. The color guard during the ceremony. View from the deck looking out over the harbor, with the city to our back. Victor with Mom ---- and ---- Victor with Dad Victor came down to visit us for a week. We walked down the main deck and with the heat it was a quite miserable! They were holding the retirement ceremony on the main deck, the volunteer said that they do quite a few retirements and re-enlistments on the Wisconsin.

The ship was so large you could not get it all in one picture. (But then we took many pictures of all of the ships!) The Wisconsin was used in Desert Storm, firing missiles at designated targets.

There were barges coming and going throughout our cruise, being pushed by tug boats.

Across the bay was a marina with some fancy boats. How would you like to vacation on this one? She makes our motorhome look small!!

As we went down the harbor we saw docks for repairs. The ship on your left is actually lifted up by hydraulics while they fill the large walls with water, sinking the dock and floating the ship over it. Then they pump out the water leaving the ship in dry dock.

We saw a number of ships in various processes of work.

This is a passenger ferry between one part of Norfolk to another. People do daily commutes on it. However, not too many now for it was 2 pm.

This three mast is part of the tour fleet. We could take a two hour tour on it also. But our lower deck was air conditioned. lol.

More harbor tug traffic. Interesting.

We are entering the area where some of the NAVY vessels are being worked on. The three in the first photo are identical, though one is backed in between the other two.

This was interesting. The Hawaii ferries were here in storage because their company went belly up and they are in receivership. These are very large and probably fast ferries, cats.

These are cranes loading cargo vessels. S.E.S. could design and build this type of equipment. I see nothing out of the way in machine building. Even Victor picked up on this!

This picture is of a golf course built over a 20 year old land fill along the harbor. Sounds like good use of land!

This cargo ship passed us as we were touring. We think that it had been with the ships we watched being loaded for International shipping. The cranes were amazing!!

These cranes look simple in design, but cost between 5 and 8 million dollars.

These four pictures show various cranes loading closed cargo boxes on ships for transport. Wow!

I am always taking pictures of boats. They fascinate me!! I was enjoying this day very much!

Now we are entering the NAVY yard and piers. There were at least fourteen piers with ships beside at least eight of them. Each pier was numbered, except there was not a number thirteen!

These were called Ticonderoga class ships, the light gray sections above deck are sensors that can keep as many as 200 targets under surveillance at one time.

They also had two submarines in dock being readied for duty.

You are looking at this aircraft carrier pictures in the progression that we saw it. It is the USS George H W Bush, CVN-77 and is quite impressive. The flight deck is 332.9m long and 76.8m wide. Although you can only see one jet on deck, it has the capability of launching aircraft at a rate of one every 20 seconds. The deck has four C13-2 steam catapults. It is the largest US aircraft carrier in use, having been increased in size over prior models to accommodate helicopters also.

Now we relax as we return to port, watching the ships pass us by.

A view of the open top deck of our tour boat.

The back of an old _ _ _ _ person! lol

Just sitting back while watching the sail boat go past.

Vic and Mom back on solid ground,

with a view of downtown Norfolk. All good things must come to an end! Victor is leaving us Saturday morning to return to Ohio and work again on Monday! It was a very good visit!

Whose turn next?