Underway again! We finally got the bottom paint on and all of the other chores done and we are now on our way back home to Virginia Boat & Yacht in Portsmouth VA. Remember the propeller from the previous shot before we started work. Well this is how they are supposed to look.
The yard put us back in the water about 1:30 on Friday 18 October and we motored off to Fishing Bay which was our stop for the night. I said motored because there was no wind to sail on at all. At least the bottom was clean and the props polished so we made 8 knots instead of the 2 knots we could make on the dirty bottom.
We arrived in Fishing Bay at the mouth of the Piankatank River (just below the Rappahanock River at Deltaville, or for those of you from Richmond, "the rivah.") at about 8:30, dark and lonely, but not unfamiliar as we use it as a stopping point quite often. Fishing Bay is about half way from St Mary's to Norfolk. These waters are always quiet and peaceful. You can easily imagine life here for the Native Americans as they fished and crabbed these waters. At times we sail up here and just unwind for several days. The only thing that breaks the quiet is Sailor the boat dog barking at the anchor as each link goes over the side. Maybe the Indians had American Boat Dogs in their dugouts. Maybe they should have set their boat dogs against Captain John Smith and everything would have turned out differently for them.
The weather was beautiful. What a great day to be a sailor.