Nearing the Two-Week Mark at Sea Mist

Tuesday, 25 June
Sea Mist RV Park — NAS Oceana, Dam Neck Annex — Virginia Beach, Virginia
Temps: Lo 74F / Hi 95F [feels like 101F] (23C / 35C [38C])

A routine of reading on the patio, walking and sitting on the beach, triking around the base, and going to the movie theater twice doesn’t really provide anything exciting to write about.

Nonetheless, here is a bit of this and a bit of that from the days past.

One of our goals for retirement was to change our diet to include more plant-based foods and less animal-based foods.  We implemented that change a week ago and Mui’s been fixing up a storm of delicious dishes for us to try out — including yummy frozen treats for after dinner … our favorite so far has been a chocolate cherry concoction.  It hasn’t been difficult to make the change since we’ve always enjoyed salads, legumes, vegetables, fruits, and the like.  Not becoming vegetarians, mind you … just leaning a little more in that direction.

Not much in the way of wildlife to keep the camera clicking around here.  Except for the smallish black snake I saw slithering under our coach a few days ago [double shudder] — which I had no desire to photograph.  Mui managed to shoo it back to the dunes from which it came by using a stream of water from the hose to nudge it off the patio.

The ospreys, on the other hand I am always happy to see.  There are plenty of them nesting here at the Dam Neck Annex; some with chicks.  Alas … no photos as I had no desire to get into trouble by pulling out my camera in a restricted zone.

Dragonflies are plentiful here — especially these black saddlebags.

We’ve been taking advantage of our proximity to the beach at this campground.  A short walk to one of the two access points puts us on a wide stretch of sand fronting the Atlantic Ocean.  We — I, actually — have been walking out on the beach in the mornings when there is seldom anyone else about.  Mui has gone triking instead, although he has joined me on occasion.  We’ve gone over with our chairs and beach shelter, but the north/south orientation of the beach makes it difficult to escape the sun until later in the day.  By then, it’s too hot to be on the beach.  Unfortunately, the ocean has been too rough for swimming.  Mui did manage to go in for a dip yesterday, but it was more playing in the surf than swimming.

Looking south (left) and north … scenes taken within seconds of each other.

The waves might not look like much, but the undertow is very strong.

The only birds I’ve been able to photograph in the past ten days have been on the beach.  And they have not been around in great numbers.  In fact, we saw the terns one morning as we walked by the enlisted beach; and then they disappeared.

The only royal terns we’ve seen showed up on the beach on a day of strong-wind,
which swirled about the mist from the Atlantic Ocean.

Digging around the edge of the surf nets this boat-tailed grackle a tasty ghost crab.

When I said there wasn’t much in the way of wildlife here, I forgot about the ghost crabs.  They are quite abundant on the beach — and they seem to come in all sizes.  The really big ones came as quite a surprise to me.  For some reason, I always thought they were teeny-tiny.  Watching them dig their burrows has been an ample source of amusement for me.  I posted my favorite ghost crab photo at the beginning of this blog entry, but here’s another one that I really like because it shows how disproportionate the claws are.

The claws are actually the fifth pair of legs, which — in conjunction with the
other four pairs of legs — allows a ghost crab to move in any direction.

I guess I should come out of the “shoe closet” and admit that I hopped on the Oofos bandwagon this week.

After hearing about them first from Sherry and then from Sue, I decided to buy a pair.  After all, who could resist Sue’s description: “…kind of like falling into one of those Memory Foam beds, only for your feet.  Luscious.”

I’d describe them as cushy without being soft … if that makes sense.  I love the arch support, and the toe-thingy is not at all uncomfortable.  If I didn’t need to wear thick socks during our partly-cold-weather vacation this fall, I’d take the flip-flops with me.  As it is, I will probably end up getting a pair of the clogs to wear as slippers on our off-the-road trip.

When we booked our stay at Sea Mist, we anticipated hot and humid days, and not much time spent outdoors.  We were wrong — even with the change in weather a few days ago.

Our first ten days here were pretty wonderful, even if some of them were mostly cloudy; and we did have a deluge with thunder and lightning one day.  On the other hand, we had low-to-no humidity to speak of, and the mornings were cool enough for long pants and a fleece jacket while reading on the patio.  The afternoon hours did warm up, but it really wasn’t bad until this weekend when the temps started to rise dramatically.

Thanks to the almost-constant breeze — and our man-made shade (more about that in the next post) — I was able to sit outside this afternoon until the thermometer hit the 88F (31C) mark.  One thing I have noticed is that there’s always a breeze in this section of the campground.  That’s not necessarily the case in the older section, where the breeze is blocked by the trees and vegetation.  The forecast is for increasingly hot temperatures, so the breeze may not help much in the days ahead … we shall see.

Surf Lace

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that we’ve been to a couple of movies here on base.  At every military installation we’ve been on, we’ve checked to see if there is a movie theater.  NAS Pensacola had one, and we went to a show while we were there.  NCBC Gulfport had free DVD screenings, and we caught one of those as well.  All of the other installations have had to close their movie theaters — for a variety of reasons, but mostly due to lack of funding.

We were thrilled to find that NAS Oceana still has a theater — and a big one that seats 900.  I imagine it is used for all-hands-on-deck meetings as well as entertainment.

Of the movies being screened, we opted first for The Big Wedding, a romantic comedy.  It was entertaining, but would have been better without so much potty-mouth language.

Next we went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness, which was a James Kirk meets James Bond space adventure.  We enjoyed this one as well; Trekkies will easily see the plot similarities to some of the original Star Trek movies.  (Click the posters for info about the movies.)

What happened to exploring the area?  We’ve in fact talked about doing something almost every evening, but that’s all it’s been — talk.  When morning rolls around, we get too comfortable on the patio and postpone our plans to another day.  Part of the reason we’ve been not-so-enthusiastic about visiting the nearby sights is because we’ve been to Norfolk and Virginia Beach before, and it’s all “old news” to us.  We’re still hoping to get out and do some sightseeing, however.  Hopefully we haven’t entirely missed the “sightseeing weather” window.