ARM CUAUHTEMOC

0800, Monday, May 25, 2015, Memorial Day

Another beautiful day on the water. We are sitting on Flicka having coffee as usual, watching Norfolk wake up. Not much water traffic today, being a federal holiday. Probably lots of Memorial Day activities planned ashore here and everywhere across America, but here on the water it’s quiet as usual.

Spoke to my old friend, Joe McCue, to get the low down on Harry Browning, who came through his surgery well and is recovering nicely. During that conversation a very large, three masted, square rigged schooner left out of the Waterside Dock in Norfolk in full regalia with music blasting and people cheering.

 

 

The ARM CUAUHTEMOC

 

I thought this boat had to be an American celebratory vessel all decked out for a grand Memorial Day celebration, but as it turned the corner and bore down on us, we plainly heard mariachi music and finally saw the ensign, a grand Mexican flag flying from the stern that must have been one seventy-five feet long.

 

 

 

The Mexican Ensign

 

 

This boat is a Mexican Navy training tall ship the ARM CUAUHTEMOC. The boat carries forty two officers, forty three cadets and one hundred and twenty five enlisted crew members. Her home port is Acapulco.

What a sight! The yardarms (cross braces on which the sails are stored and from which they are deployed), all four of them on the two forward masts, were lined with sailors, probably cadets, standing at what appeared to be rigid attention, holding on to rat lines for dear life.

 

Cadets high on the yardarms

 

Standing at attention

The boat passed us with what I’m sure was Mexican national music blaring, and I mean blaring. It was a grand sight. Away it went, passing by the USS Wisconsin, a retired US battleship now a museum, then by the Norfolk Naval Station and NOAA Atlantic Marine Operations Center, turning the corner at Lambert’s Point, passing by the entrance to the Fayette River and finally into Hampton Road where I’m sure it made an offing into the Chesapeake Bay and probably out into the Atlantic Ocean past Virginia Beach.

So then we got it going and sailed along the same route out into Hampton Roads, avoiding a super big container ship, the Galaxy Dream from Monrovia that was getting underway, a couple of tug boats, one that tooted at us when I waved and saluted, and various pleasure craft. We sailed on a beam and broad reach along Hampton Roads, across the Hampton Roads tunnel that many of us have traveled in, passed Fort Monroe and out to the Thimble Shoal light, then turned left across the Horseshoe at 1630 passed into the Poquoson River to a very fine anchorage with two other boats and Langley Air Force Base just to our south.

 

 

 

The Galaxy Dream, from Monrovia

 

The Galaxy Dream going away

 

A fine day indeed!

Mitakuye Oyasin (Lakota Sioux) “To all my relations”