Elizabeth City!

We pulled away from the dock at the visitors center at 7:15 this morning. Our plan was to go to Alligator River but that was scraped because we seemed to be having trouble with our batteries. After Larry disconnected the solar panels and wind generator and doing some more trouble shooting and calling Scott to confer it was decided that our batteries are having difficulty keeping up with our refrigerator and Engle freezer. That is good because we can control usage by not running other things like fans. Even though it is very hot it seems to cool down when the storms roll in. 

We arrived in Elizabeth City about 12:15. A very short day for us. We walked into town and found a nice restaurant to have lunch at. Shortly after we returned to the boat the sky became very threatening. We only got a short burst of rain thankfully and it did clear the air of some of the heat and humidity. This is a screenshot of the weather map. It looks like we may get more rain. 

Some pictures of us going through the second and last lock of the Dismal Swamp. 

The alge bloom, duck weed, in the Pasquotank River today. The boat in from of us had passed through this area shortly before us but there wasn't evidence of him ever having been through there left behind. 

Dismal Swamp!

We left Tidewater Marina at 7:15 this morning. We just entered the channel and noticed that our RPM gage was not working. We run our engine at 2800 RPMs which gives us about 5 knots of speed. Larry removed the front panel and it immediately started to register, which indicated a possible loose wire. Well it's working now so let's do this later. We had to be at the bridge opening at 9AM, so he put things back together. It worked for the rest of the day. 

It's always something when you own a boat. 

We made our bridge opening with plenty of time to spare. 

We then entered the creek leading to the Dismal Swamp. Here again we had to wait for the scheduled opening of the first lock. We decided to drop our anchor as we had an hour wait. The day was proving to be a warm one but we had a great breeze. 

There were two of us going through the lock but as you can see by the picture they were faster than us. 

Sometimes the Dismal Swamp has logs submerged and today was one of them. We hit about three logs while in transit. Later talking to the couple on the trawler they had hit the same amount. 

We had several dragonflies visiting us throughout the day. We also had horseflies, them we didn't like. 

Our plan was to anchor at Goat Island but Mother Nature took care of that plan. She gave us a thunderstorm instead. We made it to the Dismal Swamp Visitors Center and decided to call it quits. We have waited out other storms here in the past. This time there are three of us tied to the docks other times there have been a dozen or more rafted up. 

We plan to head out early tomorrow morning to catch the next lock opening and will anchor in Alligator River if Mother Nature allows us to get that far. 

Historic Portsmouth!

Thought you might enjoy some of the pictures I took today while exploring Portsmouth. 

Ships at dry dock on Elizabeth River. 

One of the many beautiful historic homes. 

One of the parks, green spaces we came across. 

Residential street in the historic residential area. 

The Catholic Church, one of many churches and denominations we saw today. 

This is the Portsmouth Light Boat, now a museum. We had a very informative tour by Bruce the docent at the museum. These boats were used by the Coast Guard to guide vessels into inlets. They were used instead of lighthouses when it wasn't possible to built a lighthouse. If the ground was too soft to support a light house a light boat was used in its place. The boat would be at anchor in the inlet no matter what the weather would be. I can't fathom what that must have been like. When we travel and anchor I look forward to places where we can go to shore even if it's by dinghy. I have a need to stretch and walk after even a few days of being aboard. The crew aboard these light boats were on board for a month at a time, after which they would get a month leave to go to shore, then it was back aboard for another month. It was a tough duty. 

First Day on the Water!

Our time on the bay was pleasant. We had a nice breeze even though for the most part it was self generated. The dolphins teased us all day. They were wonderful to watch but impossible to get a good photo of them. 

Around 1:00 we made our turn to go up onto the James River, then onto the Elizabeth River. Once we turned at the river it became very uncomfortable with the heat and humidity. Very little to no breeze. 

We arrived at Tidewater Marina at 3:15 PM after nine hours of traveling. When we were finally tied up at the dock and started up our air conditioning the temp in the cabin registered 95 degrees. It took several hours to cool down to a comfortable 80 degrees. The air conditioner finally shut off during the night at 78 degrees. We don't like it too cool but 95 was a bit much. 

The Navel ships on the Norfolk side of the Elizabeth River. 

The sky as we were traveling on the Elizabeth River just before the Marina. Even though the sky was very threatening we never saw any rain. 

Say It Ain't So!

Yes it's so. We cast off our lines from our dock at Doziers Marina, our home this past eight weeks, at 6:15 this morning. 

The Chesapeake Bay is calm and the winds are nonexistent, not good for sailing. It's going to be one of those iron jenny kind of days, not my favorite but it will get us there. Our plan is to get to Portsmouth, Virginia this afternoon before the thunderstorms hit. We will take a dock for two nights at Tidewater Marina.  Normally we anchor but the heat has been unbearable. Once we leave Portsmouth it will be multiple nights of anchoring so we will have to buck up and bear it. 

Thought I'd share with you our view through our new dodger. 

Time to Move On!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I wrote to let you know our progress but I've barely been able to breathe. For the past two weeks I've been sewing nonstop. The gal who works for Chris has been on vacation and I've been arriving at his shop by 7:00 AM to sew my projects. I'm happy to announce that all is finished. I'm pleased with what I have accomplished and very ready to head South. I've teased that I've been chained to the sewing machine. A couple of the days I had put in a 13 hours but I'm done now and don't care to sew for awhile. 

This is my list of projects, dodger, bimini, connector, sun shades, hatch covers, two sets of skylight covers one in Sunbrella and one in phifertex, wheel cover, bags to hold seat cushions, custom bed sheets, two winch covers, bag to hold door panels. I guess that's why it has taken me six weeks to finish. I was very happy to have had two solid weeks during the day to sew. It was hard to accomplish much in a few hours at night and on the weekend. It's all done now and tomorrow Thursday we will start our trip south. 

This picture shows our boat all dressed up in her new suit. I made window covers for the dodger to help keep out some of the heat from the sun at the dock and at anchor. They also protect the windows and help them to last longer. The color is called smoke but reminds me of a grey flannel suit. I'm pleased with the change. 

This is my custom set of sheets for our new v berth mattress. We will probably sleep up in the v berth at anchor. No electric means no air conditioning and our boat engine is near our aft bed. 

Larry went to Enterprise and rented a car for us to provision for the trip South. We took advantage of the opportunity to take Chris and Lavinia to dinner Saturday night. We will miss them when we leave here but look forward to visits with them while we are in Florida.  

Monday while doing more provisioning we took the time to enjoy a nice lunch at the Riverwalk Restaurant in Yorktown. This picture of Larry shows the bridge we crossed over to get cross the York River. Because of the great number of rivers traveling from one city to another takes a longer than normal time. Virginia is certainly beautiful country. 

Looking down river on the Riverwalk. 

Tall ship on the river! Beautiful!

Don't want you to think Larry was slacking while I was sewing. Besides remote working, here is his list of boat jobs.  Replaced knot meter o-ring shaft and paddle wheel, installed water maker, replaced 12 VDC fuse panel with breaker panel, changed fuel and oil filters, changed 5/8" raw water hose to raw water pump with 3/4" hose, changed water pump impeller, filled holes in fiberglass used to fasten old cockpit cushions, cleaned holding tank float sensor (fun!), filled holes from fasteners from old enclosure, installed new solar panels, installed new Zarcor companionway door, installed outboard engine lift, patched dinghy and added D rings for lifting in davits, polished all the stainless and topside fiberglass. I'm sure there is more but I have forgotten!

While bumping around Deltaville we found the former presidential yacht, the Sequoia. The Sequoia used to be berthed behind the Cantina Marina in the Washington Channel. Looks pretty sad now after a couple of years on the hard at a yard on Fishing Bay. 

 

Working on Canvas in the Heat!

It stopped raining and the heat came but at least it's dry, a matter of speaking, when I say dry. The humidity has been very high and you sweat standing still. The picture shows our weather conditions for today and yesterday was about the same. No complaints here because I've been sewing again. 

We fit the back bimini and it's all constructed and installed. Today Chris came and we fit the dodger. After deciding what we wanted for the dodger it became a bimini with zip on panels. We feel that the openness when the panels are removed will be cooler in the heat down in Florida. This means I'll be sewing again tomorrow morning. I hope to get the front bimini constructed tomorrow. It won't be as complicated as the back bimini. There is no slave bar (that means no extra pocket and zippers), no viewing panel (that means no glass and no cover with hardware) and no solar panel (that means no extra zippers and flaps). 

Raining in Deltaville!

We are still in Deltaville! Hope to finish up our canvas this week and be on our way to Florida sometime next week. It's been raining for the last two days here. We are at a fitting stage of the next two sections of canvas and can't do it in the rain. I'm hoping for a dry day tomorrow Tuesday so it can be done. 

We have found jobs to do in the meantime though. Larry is changing our fuel filters in the picture. Not an easy job because one of the filters is under the bed. Nothing is ever easy on a boat. After that he changed the oil filter. 

In this picture Larry is in the process of grinding out a soft spot on this piece of fiberglass that covers our steering mechanism. He started out thinking it would be a quick job until he got into it. As usual nothing is ever easy. After he ground out the soft area we had to devise a form so when he poured epoxy filler (West System) into it it didn't run all over. We used metal flashing used on roofs as our form. In order that the fiberglass didn't adhere to the metal, we covered it with melted paraffin. It worked great, now the soft spot is firm again. 

This is what our sky has looked like the past couple of days. Very dark and gloomy. 

This was a beautiful sunset before the rain hit.