Getting stuff done.......
23 October 2014
• Deltaville VA
by Mike
Still trying to decide when we will be leaving.
Part of it is being made easier by both the weather and Tony the mechanic who keeps finding stuff that should be done and which needs ordering in of parts. If it weren't for the fact that the prices he gets are excellent and that he does really good work and in a very short period of time (ie the hourly rate is only charged for the time that he actually works and not for the time he spends strolling back and forth from the office or even chatting with me) I would be suspicious, but I am not and quite enjoy the time here. The marina has a courtesy car as I have mentioned and Alan and I were discussing the fact that for a marina to buy a "beater" car and make it available to their clients, isn't expensive and makes visitors really happy, and we couldn't understand why more marinas and clubs don't do the same.
Yesterday I had a visit to the doctor and was diagnosed, I hope correctly, with traveler's stomach and got a prescription for antibiotics to whack the bug. Again, what fun, but one that I couldn't have accomplished without the courtesy car. Thanks Deltaville Yachting Centre. By the way for anyone coming along this way it's $1/ft if you are a Boat USA member and $110/month to leave your boat here on the hard regardless of length and beam! That's one reason we are going to summer Nelleke here next year while we head home for the warmer weather.
Today started windy and cold and ended windy but sunny so we are keeping our fingers crossed that we can get away tomorrow as planned. It has been a wee bit of a rush to get all the final bit of several jobs completed in order that we can pay up and make an early departure tomorrow.
Let's see.....we have set up the starting mechanism to be push button from the cockpit;
we have replaced the defective blower so that it will exhaust the hot air from the engine compartment and let Yoki work at her most efficient;
we changed the oil and filter and replaced the worn and loose alternator belt on Yoki; we fixed the fridge;
we got the engine coolant correctly routed so that it would heat fresh water while the engine was running;
we repaired the shower sump pump;
the only things that we didn't get done were the ones that I had planned to do myself. A lot of the jobs that were done were made more challenging by the fact that I had done most, if not all, of the wiring during the time that I had been posted to Ottawa and was trying to squeeze the jobs into the small amount of allotted time each weekend that I got home. Result? The job looks a bit like a monkey's breakfast and the wires are not to colour code so they are murder to trace and much of the wiring is duplicated (for instance there are multiple ground wires running around rather than a short distance to a ground bus and then one heavy wire to the ground) and and and......
Sigh.
I knew this was going to rise up and bite me in the ass one day and I guess this is that day.
Our plans are to head out tomorrow to Norfolk. I would really like to get to Great Bridge but failing that Hospital Point would be OK too. As those of you who have traveled the ICW know once you are into the Waterway proper with all of the bridges you schedule is no longer under your control. If the bridge is scheduled to open on the hour or on the half hour or not to open at all during certain times of the day and you arrive five minutes too late you may be sailing about in circles for 30 minutes or an hour waiting for "the next scheduled opening" unless you get really lucky and commercial traffic (a tug and barge, or US Army Corps of Engineer vessel) comes through and the bridge tender will stay open that extra minute or two to let you through.
On the second day we will either make it a short one to Pungo Ferry or a long one to the Alligator River Bridge. Again, all depending on bridge openings. If we are unlucky and get delays we will stop at the anchorage at Pungo Ferry whereas if we luck out we will probably anchor in the dark at Alligator River. We have stayed there before but this time, unless there is some sort of emergency we will anchor out and not go into the marina.
As I am thumbing this the wind is still whistling about. On the east side of the Chesapeake there were 40 kn winds forecast out of the NW so I rather expect that there will have been some not inconsiderable flooding especially in the low lying communities like Tangier Island. I have heard it from several people that they expect the community there to be abandoned within our lifetimes due to the rise in sea level and the storms.
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