Slept ok at Quantico but sometime during the night the waves started coming in and since we were berthed near the entrance we rocked around a little bit this kept me getting up and checking the dock lines. I did get plenty of sleep.

Woke up bright and early and we were out of there at just before sunrise 5:30 and the river was rough 2 to 3 foot swells. But we had a good angle on the wind that we used most of the day. We made between 6 and 8 knots depending on the wind, current and tide.

John made eggs for breakfast in the microwave and they were delicious. No one ate the left over potatoes from the night before. Around lunch time John cut up the rest of the steak and we had steak sandwiches.

We had topped off the fuel tanks and filled up the cans at Quantico, so at about a half tank on the port fuel tank I decided to switch tanks. Soon after switching the engine stalled. I figured it was just air in the gas line so we pumped the primer ball and the engine started, sputtered and died. This continued for about 4 tries. I changed the fuel filter and tried a few more times. I was really worried at this point. I only have a single engine and without it we are crippled pretty badly with only a few possible backups. John suggested that we keep pumping the ball and try it. So he pumped and the engine kept dying. I switched back to the old tank and after about six tries the engine came back to life.

We seem to have bad gas in the starboard fuel tank. This cuts our range down a lot but we did the very dangerous maneuver of re-fueling while underway. I still had 20 gallons in cans stored on the bow. Since I get about 3 hours of travel for every 5 gallons of gas we had 12 hours of travel we could do and we were only about 2 to 3 hours away from our destination. Although at the time I did not know if they would have gas. But we figured at worst we could call Kris to come to our rescue to help fill cans.

We passed Cobb Island around 2:00pm, looking at the sky and not seeing any type of storm I polled the crew on if we should continue on for two hours to get to point lookout where I know they have gas and it is two hours closer to our destination. They all agreed even with the fact that the NOAA weather report had be forecasting thunderstorms in the afternoon all day. I decided to check the weather at NOAA once again. It is so wonderful having high speed internet access from the boat on command just like the house. This is due to the broadband wireless phone card. We use Verizon. It is not cheap but very useful. The NOAA report was now forecasting tornado warning.

I immediately changed course to Cobb Island and Fitzie's marina bar and grill. We arrived at Fitzie's in about 1 hour. The approach was shallow but we pulled up to a T pier and tied up. The had a refueling dock and sold gas for $4.20 / gallon. So everything was great and there were no storms.

We went inside and the bartender Jessica said that it would be free to stay if we spent $120. I thought we would make that since we had planned on getting dinner anyhow and Jeff and John would not let me down with their ability to drink.

We filled up the boat and then the empty cans stowed everything away and made the boat ready for the night. Went back inside ordered food and drinks and settled in. Jessica turned on the weather channel for us since we were the only folks in the bar and since Jeff was poking a bit of fun at me saying that the weather still looked fine after one and a half hours since we changed course. Not 10 min latter the storm hit. It was huge! I am so glad that we went to port.

The storm ended in about 2 hours we had desert and then returned to the boat for the night. We chatted for a while, the adults had some drinks, John his Crown Royal and Jeff his beer. And then we settled in for the night.