September 6th, 2009 Henry's Creek, Kilmarnock, Va
I had coffee in the cockpit and listened to the birds, a little less depressed than I was when I went to bed. I hate it when things don't work. I got out the multimeter to check voltages on the plug going into the back of the GPS. I found that the unit was getting power as well as the proper signal from the antenna...another lightning fatality. There's not much to be done but picking out a new one.
After wasting more time than I have in weeks, I removed the carburetor from the out board and cleaned out the tiny ports with carb cleaner and the end of an E-string. Mike went by on the Tammy C. and waved saying that he'd be back later for a visit. Kathy finished polishing the stainless.
I got the outboard idling and had some lunch before they returned and had us come tie up at their business. We had checked out the place yesterday while exploring...it was a little ramshackle looking building on the water with shallow fiberglass tanks everywhere outside. Inside there were more tanks some with crabs in various stages of molting. Their business is selling soft shelled crabs and clusters which is a soft shelled crab without the shell or legs.
We drove out to their home a mile away and spent a comfortable afternoon just talking and checking out their property.
Returning to the dinghy, with the promise that he would pick me up at 6:30 for a day of crabbing, (They take off Sundays to do their own things, and Chirstmas, but don't go in much for other holidays.) We said thanks and headed back to the boat. (He's happy now-always wanted to go out with a crab fisherman, forget about the lightning damage $$.)
Nothing was thawed so I made some sauce and we had penne with marinara sauce for a much better meal than last night.

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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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