Yvonne and I drove to Richmond, VA on Christmas morning to spend the day celebrating the holiday with my aunt Doris and her three daughters - my dear cousins Carol, Sherry and Tracey and their families. There were 17 there for dinner in all, including Carol's son Jason and his wife and two children who are living and working in London now.

The feasting began with Eggs Benedict and Bloody Marys before noon, followed by a mid-afternoon power nap. Our evening meal was scrumptuous - lasagna, sausages, sauteed peppers, meatballs the likes of which we haven't had before and plenty of great fellowship with our family. We drove back to Norfolk and slept soundly on the boat upon our return.

In the morning we awoke and began preparing the boat for the 14 mile trip to Hampton, VA where we were to meet the riggers, Gaston and Ralph. We left the slip at 0900 with winds gusting to 24 knots on the beam. Our tachometer didn't work so well and when I set the RPM at 1700 we only made 4 knots through the 2-3 foot chop in the bay. I had read that when the batteries are fully charged, some tachometers don't work well since they depend on the AC ripple on the alternator voltage for RPM information. With fully charged batteries and little ripple, the tach showed too high - so I added power until we had 6 knots. Once we turned west with wind off the nose we could motor sail and make 7.4 knots. The trip took 2.5 hours slip to slip.

We met with Ralph and Gaston (Tidewater Marine Services) and agreed on some things to be done but we will meet again in the morning and settle on a scope of work. The repairs we know we need will take longer than 4-5 days so we won't be sailing south on this trip. We will go back to Vegas this weekend and return to the boat most likely at the end of February.

We walked out for dinner and had blackened tuna with veggies then caught a cab back to the rental car we had left at the marina in Norfolk and drove it back to the boat. We plan to do boat chores and fixit stuff this week while the riggers work on the chainplates and winches - we are putting on some new electric primaries too. Can't wait!!