Exploring the first landing place and pirates in and around Virginia Beach

As stated before, we didn't always get beach weather at Virginia Beach.  One afternoon we chilled in our room and indoor pool while outdoor there was a local flood warning according to my weather app. Fortunately, most of the time it was just short rain showers or only threatening clouds, so we were able to explore a little bit. 

First Landing State Park and the Cape Henry Lighthouse

When we arrived at Virginia Beach, we had driven by the vast green area nearby Cape Henry and had seen the signs towards the First Landing State Park and the lighthouse.

Visiting lighthouses is always cool so we headed that way. We followed the touristic brown sign exit of the highway and got in lign for the access booth. We knew there was a state park and I assumed we were trying to get entrance to a paying booth of that park.   When we approached and were about 3rd car in the row, we realised all of a sudden that the paying booth wasn't manned by some state park civil servant, but by a military.  We realised we were in line in accessing a military base but couldn't turn back at that point anymore.

"Sorry, we thought this was the way to visit the lighthouse but we must be mistaken. We had no idea we were entering a military base", we uttered when it was our turn.

It turns out that the lighthouse can be visited by tourists, but it is indeed in the middle of the base so if you choose to visit, you first need to submit your car to an extensive search etc. Since we were there, we decided to go for it.  What followed was a strict explanation of do's and don'ts, all our documents needed to get inspected, then all compartments in the car needed to get opened after which we all had to get out of the car, leave all doors open and step aside at some assigned distance with hands visible to the 2 military doing the search.  It was taken so seriously with so much pump and circumstance that I had to bite my lip not to show that it started to be very amusing. However that was not really appropriate given their reaction to the fact that I had closed the glove compartment too soon and hadn't left it open before stepping away from the open car.  Clearly no room or time for jokes...security is (understandably) a serious business.

A little later we were all clear and we drove off the only allowed road towards the lighthouse a bit further. The Cape Henry Lighthouse climb is however too dangerous for small children (the  last part of the climb is on a ladder) and therefore I stayed downstairs while Jan climbed up to see the view. On top you can clearly see the other newer lighthouse from the Coast Guards, the base, the dunes and the first landing beaches.

A bit further - and the limit of where we were allowed to go  - we stopped at the beach access where a historic naval battle had been fought at this cape. We spent some time reading all signs and memorial monuments, while a coyote walked by at the parking lot.  Then it was time to return while I had the entire time the odd feeling we were being watched to ensure we'd were only stopping at the 2 authorised visiting spots in the base. 

A few kms further we did enter the First Landing State Park  (and yes, there was a parking booth at the entrance) where we accessed the visitor center and the beaches where the first permanent settlers set foot in the USA for the first time. The actual first settlement was made further inland in the river bay, because this cape was too unprotected from the ocean front for this group of English colonists.

The children had received a little bucket at the lighthouse and were convinced we'd find Bluebeard's pirate treasure at the beach...but we only found dozens of crab's holes in the sand.

Rudee's Lake

One of the evenings we headed to one of the fish restaurants at Rudee's lake, the water inlet with little harbour and beautiful villa's nearby. Great fish restaurants!

Pirate Party on the Beach

During our stay, Kabouter had an increased interest in pirates and was digging in the beach to find a pirate treasure.  His upcoming pirate themed party at school after our vacation, was on his mind. Needless to say he was overly excited to learn a real pirate festival was taking place the day we were leaving Virginia Beach. So before we left,  we took the time to visit the pirate village that had been built next to our hotel. We watched some music performances, crafts and got Kabouter a full pirate outfit that he wanted the wear most of our remaining vacation.  At the end we attended the demonstrations of the real historic canons. Those were way too scary and noisy for the children in fact so that was trigger to leave Virginia Beach and head to our next destination.