September 5th, 2009 Jackson Creek to Henry's Creek, VA
Today was disaster. I was ready to leave early... but had to wait for Kathy to finish her coffee. Our plan was to stop at the fuel dock on our way out of Jackson Creek and then head around the point and into Indian Creek and then Henry's Creek. We finally got around to weighing anchor only to find that our washdown pump was not working. Kathy got out the bucket and I did my best to get the mud off our chain as it came up... my best not being very good. With the anchor in place we headed over fuel up. I was easing in with Sapphire about 6 inches when I threw it in reverse to stop us. We stopped perfectly and I was preparing to jump off with the stern line when I noticed that Kathy had failed to get a line on the post. As we drifted away from the dock there was nothing to do but make a circle and head back to try it again. Luckily there weren't too many people around to see us.
We fueled up without incident. Kathy topped off the water tank and cleaned as much mud off the bowsprit as possible.
There was a big sailboat race happening this morning so we just got in line to snake our way out of the narrow channel.
Once in deep water I turned on the GPS but couldn't lock on to any satellites. Kathy brought out the old handheld which gave us our position in about 10 seconds. I turned the GPS off and then on again to see if anything would reset... but it wouldn't turn back on.
There was a nice breeze, so I put up the main and we rolled out the jib, headed the boat for the Eastern shore and left Kathy to sail while I went below for a couple of hours tracing wire. I found nothing amiss and quit. We swung Sapphire around and plotted a course for Indian Creek....the old way. After an hour of nice sailing we started the engine and lowered the sails and eased our way around the shoals into Henry's Creek, followed a side creek a about 110 yards and dropped the hook in front of Mike's (Tammy C.) dad's place. Mike is the waterman that we met in Deltaville working on his boat.
I spent the remainder of the afternoon installing our spare wash down pump and running down more potential GPS problems. Before dinner we lowered the outboard and explored Henry's creek and Barnes Creek. The area is mostly residential but there are still some older homes between the new starter mansions that folks seem to like.
We had a very mediocre dinner of kielbasa and sauerkraut and watched video before going to bed rather dejected.

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September 4th, 2009 Jackson Creek, Va
It was cloudy this morning but was supposed to clear around noon. Our plan was to take off sometime during the pm. After coffee I started puttering on little jobs that ended up taking all day.
First, I replaced the wire that that connects our SSB antenna to the tuner with the proper material that Dave from "Fawkes" had dropped off the night before. Then I plumbed the line and strainer between the thru-hull fitting to the water maker. The last item on my agenda was grounding the inverter/charger, which took forever. As you know the inverter charger is behind the stove and nearly impossible to get to. However, by gimbaling the stove all the way to the port and crawling under, I was just able to get my fingers on the grounding lug.
The common ground is located in the bilge and is always wet and nasty. When I opened things up to attach the ground it was a mess. I spent about an hour just cleaning things up before hooking up the ground.
Finally it was time to put the tools away. I sorted things out, got everything in the right box and then began returning the boxes to their homes. I fired up the water heater and by the time our showers were finished, it was 3:30. I ran the jib sheets back to the cockpit, attached the board that holds our jerry cans, stowed everything that needed stowing and looked at the clock again. Too late to go anywhere today, we'll just have to leave in the morning.

September 3, 2009 Jackson Creek, VA
It is still blowing from the north and although we could travel, there are still some things to finish up on the boat. One of them was to install the brine overboard hose on our watermaker. It runs from our watermaker to our sink drain, both of which are located under the waterline. When I put things together, I plugged the fitting on the sink drain and it is potentially disaster now that we're in the water.
So after coffee I sat on the floor in front of the galley sink and stayed there most of the day. I won't go into detail... but will say that I found some minor problems in my new plumbing system that needed rerouting, the compression fittings on the Seagull filter were still leaking, and I planned our the wiring system.
At one point I rowed the dinghy to shore and walked up the hardware for parts. I returned to put things back together and it was 3:30.
Dave came over from "Fawkes" with some wire, a book and a video on grounding and ground planes that we had spoken about last night. I spent some time in the evening reading the book to return tomorrow but will keep the video.

September 2nd, 2009 Jackson Creek, Va
After two months and a day we're floating. I tied off the mizzen topping lift while drinking coffee and headed over to yard to find the lift operator. Ed (the manager of the Marina) bid me farewell and the driver (who's name I should know) said that he'd up about 9 to pick us up.
Kathy and I bled the fuel lines and we were ready. The launch went without a hitch and we made the 100 meter cruise to our anchorage. It is rough on the bay and even though our destination is less than two hours away, we've been our there in north winds of 25 and there is a video to prove it somewhere. It wasn't pretty.
We were in the water about 10:30 and spent a few hours checking things out. We had some lunch and then I we lowered the dinghy off the foredeck and into the water. It was filthy. We put it away in that state and it got worse... imagine that. I loaded up with cleaners and a bucket of water, went over the side, and spent about two hours scrubbing. I rinsed it off and then sprayed it with 303s pretectant.
The rest of our afternoon was spent reading. There were a few boats out and about, but not many. Later we saw a ketch coming from up-river and heading our way. Even at a distance "Fawkes" was easy to identify, no one carries orange fenders off the stern. They anchored next us and a little later stopped by for a chat. They had spent the winter in Florida getting Angel testing and into a college and then were in Deltaville for a new engine in the spring. They missed us here by 2 days. In fact, as we were leaving Norfolk I heard Dave on the radio talking to shipping traffic but couldn't raise him.
We had some left over roast beef and lots of vegetables, so I made some beef stew with dumplings for supper.
Today Lansing was warmer that Deltaville by one degree. It felt wonderful.

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September 1st, 2009 Deltaville, VA
I got up early this morning and made a list of things that needed to be done today. Most of them didn't take too much time but the list was long. I drilled and attached our new chain guard, drove to the hardware and grocery one last time, painted under the pads holding Sapphire in the air by adding a couple extra jacks, added another coat of bottom paint to the leading edges and water line, sanded and added a coat of finish to the starboard toe and rub rails, sanded and finished the bowsprit.
Kathy cleaned most of the day but did paint the board to which we attach our jerry cans. Our new boat names came in the mail so we put them on in the afternoon.
Then we picked up the hose and moved everything up the ladder that needed to be up in the boat and hauled the rest of the stuff to the dumpster.
Tomorrow, we will have to prop up the mizzen boom and tie off its topping lift so that the boat launcher can pick us up properly. The weather is forecast to be windy out on the bay, so after launching we'll probably just anchor in Jackson Creek and do nothing for a day or so. We still have one package that hasn't arrived.

August 31st, 2009 Deltaville,VA
I woke to Kathy shutting hatches and never got back to sleep. It was cool and drizzly...70's , and felt good for a change. It wasn't however a good day for painting. The refrigerator was still not right so I went over to the office and scheduled a tech. to come over and check it out. I told Sean to call about a half hour before the tech showed up to give me time to take out the sink. By the time I got back to the boat, Sean called to give me my notice.
Jim (the tech.) arrived and checked things out to find that we were low on coolant and charged things up. I'm sure that it will be another $100 that we don't have, but was worth it never the less.
Kathy did three loads of laundry during the morning. We took the car to the hardware for some bolts to attach our new sacrificial board to the bowsprit and stopped at grocery one last time. Our bottom paint arrived around noon after its sight-seeing tour of Michigan, but it was still raining on and off so we decided not to paint. I wandered over to the office to push our launch date back until Wednesday. Since we had removed the tarp yesterday, I could move around enough to wash the deck in the rain.
Sitting in the cockpit reading the paint can a little later, I found that Micron Extra needed a minimum of 16 hours of dry time between coats. The rain had let up so it was time to paint. Kathy taped the water line while I wiped down the hull with solvent. We started painting about 4:30 and it was just dusk when I returned from the shower. Kathy had made a nice meal of ham, potato and green beans, which we ate in the cockpit in the dark

August 30th, 2009 Deltaville, VA
On of the things that we wanted to get accomplished here on the hard is some sewing. It's a job that we could do anywhere so it had a lower priority than some. However, the first job of the day was defrosting our refrigerator. I blew up Kathy's hair dryer and had to resort to warm water. It just doesn't seem to be operating correctly. It was only iced up on the lower 2/3 of the evaporator, which can't be right.
After a bite to eat and a load of laundry, Kathy set up the machine while I took off the dodger. The zippers that attached the center panel of isinglass failed in the sun last winter and needed replacing. There are a few more sewing projects if there is time.
I worked on scrubbing the old wax off the port side and after it dried, began waxing. I also put a final coat of gloss on the butterfly hatch and hit the bow sprit as well.
Somewhere along the way we had hot dogs for lunch.
Replacing zippers was a pain and took lots longer than either one of us thought, but eventually at about 4 pm she was done. She also added a leather patch where the boom occasionally rubs. The next job was a tear in the sail cover where it covers a winch. There was a piece of leather there already but it wasn't big enough to do the job. In a few minutes it was fixed. The last job was to look at a tiny hole in the very top of our mainsail. We actually found two



August 29th, 2009 Deltaville, VA
Our main job today is to bed the window panes on our butterfly hatch. It has 5 coats of finish but there are 24 slats that hold the panes in that need to be screwed in, taped inside and out, unscrewed, bedded, screwed back in, cleaned up, and finally the tape comes back off. (Just want to say, that's 60 screws out, in, out, and in)
I went for a walk and stopped in at the cabinet makers shop to see about having the ends of a piece of epay sawed on 45 degree angles to use on the bow sprit as a sacrificial. The chain flops in a couple of spots and the new board will protect the teak. I've been thinking about it for a couple of years.
After breakfast, I scrubbed the old wax off the starboard cabin side. The process calls for lots of fresh water and needs to be done before we launch.
We took a break around noon and hauled the old inverter/charger to the dumpster and then took a walk around the boatyard. Larry from "The Dove" was bedding some dynaplates and needed a hand for a few minutes. After chatting the required about of time we returned to our jobs. I finished scrubbing the starboard cabin side and then had some lunch.
After lunch it was time to attack the bedding project. I opened to tube of sealant to find that it had been around too long and was useless. Luckily the car was available so we changed clothes and drove in to the hardware to buy some new sealant.
It took us forever to get the slats screwed down and bedded and while I was cleaning up one pane, Kathy had to clear the weep holes in the previous one before the sealant set up. We finally finished in time for me to wax the starboard cabin sides. The last job of the day was to get a coat of gloss on the bowsprit.
When we were home some friends of ours gave us a gift of frozen venison, knowing that it is one of the things that we miss in our new life on the water. If venison isn't butchered correctly it tastes gamey so we were always very picky during that process. The venison that we grilled tonight was perfect. Thanks... Mark, Sam, Russ and Carolyn.

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