The dock space that they moved us to about week and a half ago just has one problem – the wifi signal is so weak that one of us has to take one of the laptops over to the clubhouse and sit in the lobby to make the connection. A small price to pay.

Speaking of prices, our bill this morning came to $16K which we are quite happy with. I normally guestimate that the cost of any hardware install is the cost of materials plus the same again for labour, which would have been much more if we had been charged the local going rate of $70/hr instead of $50. Add to that the new battery bank, the new compass, and 50’ of anchor chain rode, plus assorted sundry pieces for the install and I think that the marina was very good to us. At the end of the day we have an almost new diesel in the heart of Nelleke, we have new functioning instrumentation that is duplicated at both steering stations and we are ready to go.

Barb and I had Tony and Ed, the two mechanics, over for lunch by way of saying thank you and she did up her famous corn chowder and had rolls, bread and cold cuts with all the fixings and brownies to round things out. These two guys are a little older in years and experience and are great ambassadors for the marina besides being really great mechanics and shipwrights. It was fun “working” with them (watching them work...) and we were glad that they were able to join us for lunch before we set off.

I was able to fix the VHF. I was thinking about it over night and remembering that there was a lot of poking around done behind the panel to install the new instruments I figured that the most likely cause of the problem was that one of the wires had become disconnected. That’s what it was. Don’t you just love the easy fixes?

I have tomorrow's course laid in on the chart plotter and we are looking at a reasonably full day at 5.5 knots from here to the Solomon’s. Without mishap we should be in place with the hook down no later than 18h30, and then slightly less distance the next day to Annapolis. We have been in touch with Barry and Marcia, our friends from Lake Worth and the Bahamas who make their dirt based home there, and will be paying them a short visit. I had forgotten that it is Easter Weekend and accordingly they will have three generations of their family visiting. They are kind enough to open their doors to us anyway and we will be visiting them on Monday.

Other than that we are stowing everything away in preparation for the start of the trip tomorrow. My part is the loose kit on the deck. All my proudly empty lazarettes are now almost full again. I guess I still have some culling and some stowage tricks to make up.

Peri has been spoiled during our session as a Pier Barnacle as he gets lots of walks and we throw the ball for him. Once we are underway again we won’t likely be able to let him off the leash to run so he will be back to a much more sedentary lifestyle. Poor wee hound. I hope his is still happy with his choice of people.

We have been in Deltaville since February 22 and have visited three separate historical sites; visited our friends Cliff and Diane in Richmond; done many of the jobs on the boat job list and had the engine replaced. We have actually accomplished quite a bit when you think about it. Deltaville Yachting Centre is a great place to stop at if you are coming down this way. Their brokerage has a number of really good deals on used boats, eg a Bruce Roberts 43 centre cockpit ketch for $59K asking, they do really good work on your boat and treat it as if it were their own and the facilities are quite nice. Oh, and the prices are very reasonable, too. We can recommend it to anyone coming this way. The only negative thing that I can say is that the water is quite hard.

From Barb: I can echo Mike’s comments about the Deltaville Yachting Center as a great place to stop, for a layover on the hard if required, for marine supplies, and for very competent and reasonably priced yard work. We all have been well treated and everyone we met here and in town have been lovely folks. If you stop by make sure you walk in town a short way and enjoy great coffee and lunches prepared by the ladies at The Cafe By The Bay. We were walking back today from a trek to the Post Office and a gentleman in a pickup pulled alongside and asked “How far are y’all going?” – just an example of the friendly folks here. We had a chance on our walk to see how the tornado cleanup is going – a lot of the debris has been cleared away, windows are boarded up, some roofs have been repaired. The Zoar Baptist Church has plans to rebuild its sanctuary and would be grateful for any donations – you can send a cheque to Zoar Baptist Church, P.O. Box 1010, Deltaville, VA 23043 and specify on the cheque “Rebuilding Project”.

The picture on today’s post is of Mike splicing the rode to the chain for the spare anchor.

Since we are leaving at the crack of dawn tomorrow I am not sure when we will be making our next post; so, Happy Easter, Happy Spring, to all of you and your loved ones.