September 12... Deltaville, Va

There is no rhyme or reason that I can see to the launching of boats here. I told the office we wanted to splash on Friday, but our friend Mike drives the travel lift and seems to have the final say. I had told him the middle of the day but that could mean anything.

So we took down the tarps that had seen reliable service keeping pine sap and other debris off our clean canvas. We gave one to our neighbor who is alone with a baby and a 4 year old for 28 days at a time while her husband is at sea. The other we rolled up and will keep as a shade for the cabin in weather that is too hot.

Kathy took a shower and I washed the decks since we have unlimited fresh water for the last time in the foreseeable future. After taking the hoses apart and stowing them, we had a late breakfast ... with toast from our camp toaster... which started a small fire of crumbs in the galley and had Kathy momentarily glancing at the extinguisher.

As we were finishing our brunch, Mike headed up the road with the travel lift and signaled that we were next. The process is relatively simple. The lift which is U shaped pulls up straddling your boat and two very large straps go under the hull. Mike lifted the boat while Will returned all the jack stands and wooden blocks to the trailer which is towed by a smallish John Deere tractor and follows the travel lift wherever it goes.

Before he drove away, I cleaned and painted the spots on the keel where we had been sitting on wooden 6' x 6's.

After lowering us into the well we jumped aboard, started the engine and drove about 100 yards into Jackson Creek where we anchored for the night. There are small craft warnings on the Bay until 10 pm and we didn't want to bounce around that much.

That's about when the bilge pump went off... actually it doesn't go off it starts pumping ...but I wired a buzzer into the line so when it is in fact pumping, we can hear it.

It was not a good thing. After scrambling around checking all thru-hull fittings, we deduced that our problem was over-filling our water tank by a few gallons and once we pumped it out everything was back to normal.

It was pleasant being back on the water.