the night before.

well, we FINALLY get to leave hampton in the morning for the ICW.  tom and i have been antsy to leave.  we've been holding still too long.  i am still +/- about the buddy boating thing but well, there it is - it is what it is.  i would be lying if i said i was thrilled about it but, well, i am anti-social to begin with anyway.  ok, not THAT anti-social - just picky.  the past few days, we have gotten to know some of our companions for this voyage.  or at least, tom has gotten to know some of them as  i have just been holed up in the boat trying to get some work done as i can see that it's going to be tough maintaining the same standard of work in the next six weeks.  oh well... it's hard to learn how to chill out when one is old and set in one's ways.  either way, i just want to get going and the time has finally come.  it's the night before.

it is also halloween and amongst our SAIL ralliers, there is one boat with a 7-year-old and we all got an email the night before to prepare something for young connor so that he could trick or treat on the dock among the boats and not miss out. walking down the dock this early evening, i saw someone carving out a pumpkin, too.  some folks actually brought costumes!  but tom and i are such party poopers - no costumes for us.  heck, i don't even put costumes on consuelo!  in any case, connor did not leave our boat empty handed.  he looked pretty good actually - really cool mask. 

so, here is our SAIL rally leadership:  1) wally, our captain james tiberius kirk, the cowboy fearless leader; 2) mark, who is mr. spock, combination navigator/science officer/voice of reason in a time of madness; and 3) tom, who is scotty, troubleshooter extraordinaire and tech support.  there was an emergency meeting tonight on our boat because the weather is looking like crap for late tomorrow so they want to get all the ducklings herded into the dismal swamp en masse where it will be protected if we get a blow.  anyway, that is the short version of the plan.  bottom line:  we leave tomorrow as planned.  i'm glad that i have the day off from work and that work ran out tonight so i won't be tempted to work deep into the night or look for work tomorrow like i always do on my official days off from work.  i've got a lot of reading to do (charts and guides and what-nots) along the way.  i am going to miss the money sigh... but i am excited :) 

tom's article in proptalk magazine, november 2014, p. 59.

selecting an inflatable dinghy

hampton some more, norfolk and hampton again.

because we had to be back in hampton for the start of the SAIL rally, the original plan was to go somewhere else we hadn't been and to do a little exploring., but with the high winds we had been having, it just never happened and we wound up leaving the hampton public piers and anchoring right in the river instead.  which was kind of anticlimactic really - so much for "heading south for real."  tom and i chomped at the bit to be going "somewhere" but at the same time, since we were just "sitting," we both got quite a bit done.  and it was easier to take consuelo ashore to the dinghy dock and to mill point park close by anyway.  we did a little grocery and hardware store shopping, too, but nothing very exciting and new.  we watched boats come in and go out and we explored the hampton river by dinghy.  on the second day at anchor, it rained and was cold and miserable and depressing but the subsequent days, except for the wind, were bright and sunny.

on sunday, october 26, 2014, we picked up our anchor from the sticky and stinky mud of hampton river, pulled into the hampton public piers for a pump-out and a bit of a wash and then pulled out into hampton roads towards norfolk.   the first (and only) time i did the ICW was in 1992, from D.C. to charleston (boat broke down on the way to miami so i took the train home - i had been gone for three weeks) on a 43' endeavor.  at the time, we entered hampton roads at dawn and i was amazed and awestruck - it was like a naval ship and submarine parking lot!  not to mention the enormous cargo ships that were going in and out or on moorings.  i felt very small and insignificant then - i thought our 43-footer was a BIG boat!  this time, i am still in awe.  there is a difference between ships and boats and these guys are SHIPS.  i honestly don't think that it will ever get old for me to go by these monsters on the waterway.

hospital ship

amphibious transporter

NOAA catamaran

the wisconsin's big guns

one of the many tugboats

dry dock

eisenhower aircraft carrier. if you look closely, there is a guy with a gun on the bow.

a "dormitory" barge (temporary housing for those working on the ship)

transformers!  (no, they are cranes)

our friend, norman, came out on his dinghy to meet us when we got into the lafayette river.  i first met norman and betsy in 2003.  at the time, they had a parker and their rosborough was on order.  i had come from a parker and my rosborough was brand new and i was just getting into the cruising thing.  they eventually sold their boat and got a monk 36 and in 2009, tom and i moved  into TADHANA so we've sort of paralleled in that aspect.  in any case, we have become good friends and make every effort to encounter each other on the water (and off) whenever feasible.  it is always enjoyable and informative.

sunrise at lafayette river anchorage

we anchored off of the norfolk yacht club on the lafayette river.  our friends live walking distance from it and so we wandered over (with my bedsheets to launder) and spent the afternoon and evening at their home getting caught up.  we even got to watch the ISS go by that evening from their backyard.  the next day, norman took us for a tour of the norfolk/portsmouth harbors on their boat, PEGGY SUE.  the weather was outstanding and just perfect  for it and we had a lovely time.  we couldn't have had a better tour guide - norman is a history buff, as well as a very knowledgable cruiser, and, let's face it - for some of us, there simply is never enough time spent on a boat!  that evening, we dinghied over to PEGGY SUE at the yacht club and together with norman and betsy, watched both the sunset and the ISS go by again.  there was supposed to be a rocket launch from the wallops island flight facility visible through a good part of the east coast but that got scrubbed and rescheduled for the next day.

cranes in the sunset

sundowners on PEGGY sue at the norfolk yacht club

in the morning, we picked up our (again) muddy anchor and headed back to the hampton public piers.  on the way, we heard a conversation on the radio between a little sailboat and an enormous cargo ship.  first of all, in my opinion, the rule of thumb is that if he is bigger than you, you need to stay out of his way, i.e. DON'T be in the middle of the channel!  in any case, what i picked up on was that whoever was on the sailboat was still having a problem with the difference between port and starboard so there was a lot of back and forthing between the two about who was going to pass where even though it was pretty clear (at least to me) from the first statement made by the ship.  but the sailboat guy was a bit chatty so he said he was going down the ICW and asked the ship where it was going.  the answer was "out to sea."  well, a little later, it was clear that the sailboat guy didn't know which direction was "out to sea" and also clear that he didn't know which end of the ship was the bow and which was the stern or whether it was going forwards or backwards!  tom and i were like.....  OH. MY. GOD.   we are now wondering how much of this we are going to encounter on our journey south. one of those "sad and entertaining" things, i guess.  THEY are out there, people - BEWARE! 

we pulled into the same slip at the hampton public piers that we had occupied for the snowbird rendezvous.  wow, it was like going home!  as usual, my priority was to get us cleaned up but tom immediately got snagged by someone with an engine problem (i can just see how this trip is going to go).  i blame it all on that woman at the sailboat show seminar who introduced tom as the "chief mechanic" for this gig.  i really cringed when she said that....  umm excuse me???  on the other hand, she was young and not hard to look at.  in any case, as soon as i saw the men gathering on the dock, i decided that it was pointless waiting for tom and brought out the hose myself. 

hampton snowbird rendezvous.

we attended this same event last year with tom as a representive for waterway guide, one of the sponsors, but this year, we were just plain old attendees, although tom did have a table during the round table discussions (his topic, "what's in your toolbox?" has turned out to be rather popular).   the seminars were very interesting and informative but as a geek wannabe myself, i particularly enjoyed the topic on smartphones and tablets aboard - it completely blew me away, what's out there.  i love tech :) 

but the one thing that i took away from the seminars (besides too much food) was the realization that i'm probably not going to get much work done while we're traveling as tom is going to need an extra pair of eyes.  besides, i'll want to be looking around, too, anyway, since it will all be new and exciting.  oh well, i will work at night, i suppose.  i just hope i recover enough from this weekend first!  it was enjoyable but exhausting and i came into it already tired and beat up from that long and rough passage from crisfield.  i finally gave up trying to do it all and started going to bed earlier to get more sleep but in the mornings, i would wake up in a panic - "i'm late for work!"  and i'm afraid that i've managed to let tadhana's interior get away from me a bit.

in any case, we had a fabulous time just as we did last year - seeing old friends, making some new ones - cruisers all - learned a lot of new stuff and ate way too much food!  someone made a comment on the last day of the event: "we didn't know what to do with ourselves when they said that we were on our own for lunch!"  and this was after an enormous spread for breakfast, too.  breakfast, lunch and dinner and tables with snacks and drinks during the seminars.  everyone commented about there being too much food but everyone stuffed their faces anyway. 

what is different about this year's hampton snowbird rendezvous for us is obvious.  this time, we are not turning around and going back to deltaville like we did last year.  we are one of them at last - snowbirds!  does it feel different?   hell yeah :) 

i really should stop worrying about small stuff like work and keeping up with the cleaning or i'll miss the big picture.

hampton river at twilight

heading south for real.

from the annapolis sailboat show, the first stop was solomons - an easy run for us.  we fueled up at the calvert marina fuel dock before dropping the hook.  we took in 317 gallons - yikes!  but it cost 30 cents a gallon less than anywhere else, which is a substantial savings, and that should take us to the florida border.  we were pretty ass-heavy with the fuel tanks full like that - the bow rose, exposing bottom paint, and there was no bottom paint visible at the stern. 

we dropped the anchor at our usual spot on back creek past zahniser's mooring balls, between the museum and calvert marina's floating docks where we normally go for consuelo's bathroom runs.  it is good to be early at the anchorage especially this time of year - there is a huge migration after each of the boat shows in annapolis and, generally, one does not like to travel with the horde but we didn't really have a choice since tom worked the last day of the sailboat show.  boats just kept coming and trying to squeeze themselves in, anchoring on top of us - you're kidding, right?  i sent tom out there - "tom, do something!"  oh, but it was entertaining, too.  one guy dropped his anchor and held on to the rode and then gave it a little tug and waited.  oh. my. god.  tom definitely shooed that one away and if he hadn't, i certainly would have!  good lord...  so the choices are:  1) get to the anchorage early and make sure you're aboard and watching while these clowns try to anchor on top of you so you can shoo them away; or 2) get to the anchorage late and worry about not getting a spot.  bottom line:  it's just best not to hang with the crowd, especially since a lot of them appear to either not know what they are doing or have no sense of personal space.  or even a sense of perception for that matter!   in fact, late that night, one of the sailboats dragged into a raftup of two sailboats!  oh well, at least it wasn't into us! 

we left at o'dark early the next morning.  the forecast for the next several days was not good and in fact, the forecast for the afternoon was not good either.  instead of heading south and dealing with the potomac river mouth and getting beat up, we went east into the sun, across the chesapeake,  into hooper strait, and then to tangier sound.  with that route, we missed all the rough stuff, thank goodness.  then it was south on tangier sound to the little annemesex river to crisfield where we planned to sit a day while the weather did its thing.  we were in our slip by 1300h and already the wind had picked up so it was nice to be hunkered down. 

on the way to crisfield, however, we had a little bit of drama.  here we were, patting ourselves on the back for taking this route and avoiding a seriously unpleasant ride - i tell you, it's not a good thing to be too complacent or smug.  apparently, the solenoid on the forward head switch failed and essentially, the toilet got stuck on "fill" after it was flushed.  the bathroom floor flooded and dumped a bunch of water into the bilge.  since there is no drain in that floor, the water rose up, went into the cabinet under the sink and drained through the hole where the wires come up from the engine room.  ugh...  we wondered why the bilge counter was going off and tom discovered the situation when he went below to look for his phone.  what a nasty surprise.  anyway, i had to pump the flood waters out and then tom tried to fix it underway but he needed a part so the only thing we could do was turn off the water pressure to stop the constant flow.  at crisfield, tom ran off to look for parts which the local boatyard said would not arrive until the next day so he jerry rigged something so that we could use that toilet and turn the water pressure back on.  unfortunately, the valve he used is very sensitive to being completely turned to the "off" position and i had to clean up flood waters again after i failed to turn the switch all the way.  sigh...  the part that tom needed arrived the next day and now everything is all fixed.  in the meantime, we got wind and rain while we were at crisfield although not to extent that we thought we would.  someone else besides us got the really big bad weather this time.  what was funny was that if you logged on to marine traffic on the internet, you would have seen that the chesapeake was devoid of pleasure boats.  EVERYONE who had AIS was staying put where they were.

on thursday, october 16, 2014, we left crisfield at o'dark early for hampton, VA.  between it being so early and all the other things that i had to do, i completely forgot to bring up the fenders until we were well into the river.  there was some wind and waves splashing over the bow and one wave got me good while i was on the side deck putting away lines grrrr...  we went south on tangier sound and waved at tangier island as we passed.  we wanted to stop by and say hi and bye to milton but the weather did not cooperate and we were running out of time as we were scheduled for the hampton snowbird rendezvous on the 16th.  it was rough where the sound joined the chesapeake and it was rough on the Bay as well with the wind on the nose.  in the late morning,  i staggered my way to the galley to find breakfast and a little later, tom came running from the pilothouse yelling "bilge counter says 23!!!" which meant that the bilge pump went off 23 times - BIG PANIC - but where is the water coming from??  as it turned out, every time we flew up into the air and came down with the waves, so did the bilge float!  tom checked the bilge - no, we were NOT taking in water phew but for a while there.... ack!

in any case, 10 hours of this endless up and down, banging and crashing before we finally got to hampton.  as we turned the corner from the Bay to hampton roads, we were greeted by dolphins :)  then it was up the hampton river and finally, we squeezed ourselves into slip number 4 at the hampton public piers.  i say squeezed because we are, for all practical purposes, rafted up with the krogen next to us - it is tight!  tom hosed down the boat as we were remarkably salty and i took care of consuelo and getting us registered.  we did arrive in time to attend the reception for the snowbird rendezvous and it was really nice to see our old friends from last year but tom and i did the eat and run thing because he had a roast in the oven.  before we ran off though, we managed to win two prizes in the raffle - an inflatable PFD and two nights at the deltaville marina in jackson creek - pretty cool, huh? 

well, and we are here for three days of education and cruiser camaraderie and oh yeah, food!  looking forward to it except that tonight, we are both just about dead from being beat up all day.  it will be good to sit for a while - again.

annapolis.

because of the forecasted weather, we left oxford for annapolis on october 7, 2014, a day earlier than we had originally planned.  passage was uneventful but as soon as we got all tied and set up at the menocal's dock on mill creek, the wind returned with a vengeance and that night it rained.  talk about perfect timing.

annapolis was a blur - we were there for five days for the sailboat show and i don't know where the time went.   a lot of running around, that's for sure.  it was so good to see old friends again.   knowing that we were going to be gone for a while made it seem more urgent to spend time with them.  unfortunately, one of these friends unexpectedly ended up in the hospital :(  we did, however, have the use of her car which made it a lot easier for us to get around and run a few errands both for her and ourselves and to attend a wedding without putting out our other friends too much.  and while everyone else was duking it out at the spa creek and weems creek anchorages, we were very comfortable at mill creek.  i did, however, get shin splints from all the walking (running) around!  tom and i are exhausted - it was a busy time!

on october 13, 2014, my birthday, we pointed tadhana south - finally, the true start of our snowbird lives.  just as i was pulling up fenders on our way out, it started to rain.  oh well....  :)  but it really does feel "right" to start our journey south from annapolis. both tom and i lived there long enough to call it home and it is where we met and got to know each other and had discussions about our hopes and dreams.  today, one of these shared dreams comes true - day #1 southward bound. 

oxford.

we left the little wicomico river the next day for solomons but as we approached the patuxent river, after checking the weather and all, it was decided that we would cross the chesapeake to the choptank instead as it was forecasted to be very windy the next day and so it turned out to be a very long cruising day, from 8:15 a.m. to 5:25 p.m.  we anchored off of town creek in oxford and quickly dropped the dinghy as someone was quite anxious to get ashore.  back in deltaville a couple weeks before, we had switched out anchors to our "storm" anchor, the manson supreme.  it fit the existing anchor roller - barely - so no changes had to be made, and it's definitely not as pretty as our shiny, stainless steel bruce but it is a rocna knock-off and got very good reviews.  the nice thing about it is that it is self-launching  so no more giving the anchor a push to get it going.   and it certainly held!  as we were pulling it up the next day, going forward on it to wiggle it out of the mud, the wind took the boat and moved her backwards, and on a short chain, the whole boat jerked and shuddered to a stop!  tom and i looked at each other - WHOA!  now that was a HOLD if ever i saw one!  the only thing is the galvanized seems to bring up more mud than the stainless did, probably because it is not as slick.  good thing we have a salt water washdown - tom cleans and i drive (for a change!).

our manson supreme

we moved the next day from the anchorage to a slip at the hinckley boat yard which is right beside tom's brother's house.  we were in oxford to babysit henry's dogs while he went out of town for a few days.  granted, we had arrived a tad earlier than needed, however, the weather forecast for the next few days was less than ideal so it was good to be somewhere protected.  tom then discovered that my bicycle's 22-year-old front tire was just about to blow out so the timing was good - we would have a vehicle and be near "civilization."  it rained that night and the next day the wind blew all the water into the chesapeake and flooded everyone in the region out.  the nice thing about living on a boat is that as the flood waters rise, so does the boat.  unfortunately, if you have to step outside as we did to get new tires for my bicycle, you had to wade.  it was knee deep crossing the street and consuelo had to swim that one.  we drove to a bicycle shop in st. michaels, got new tires and a hand pump, then went to the grocery store.  we had to wade again on the way back home and consuelo's facial expression was priceless: "what? again?  you've got to be kidding!"  she got rinsed down at home.

everyone along the chesapeake was flooded out including poor tangier island (photo courtesy of nancy lewis)

something else came up which has managed to shake up our plans a bit.  tom was asked to join SAIL magazine's 2014 ICW snowbird rally as a technical adviser.  it's sort of a convoy of southbound boats with organized stops at several places along the way. it starts in hampton, VA and ends in miami, FL.  i was +/- about it simply because it was our first time to head south and i sort of wanted it to be a "private" thing.  i have never been and will never be good with "groups" but i also realized that it would be a good opportunity for tom so we talked about it a bit and in the end, we agreed that he should be a part of the team.  the thing is that it takes us quite a way from our turning-off point at jacksonville, FL to head up the st. john's river to sanford where we have reservations at the monroe harbour marina to sit out the winter while we make up our minds about what we want to do next.  plus my brother, mikey, lives in orlando, about a 45-minute drive away.  the rally would probably put us off a month from the original plan of getting to sanford by mid-december! but we are cruising liveaboards now and are supposed to be flexible.  i mostly worry about finding the time to work at my job, keeping my home clean, trying to make consuelo comfortable in her old age, and, for the most part, finding some kind of routine in a lifestyle that is hardly anything but!  perhaps my attitude would be different if i didn't have to work for a living at all but i do and that is that.  in any case, tom has said "yes" to the powers-that-be so there it is.  if there is anything about cruising that's a given, it's "oops, change of plans."  better get used to it.

in the meantime, we will be sitting in oxford until the middle of the week and then will head to annapolis next for the sailboat show where tom has a presentation on october 12, 2014. who knows what else will come up before then!

one more thing:  neighbor sent me a great photo of my two ducks.  i do miss them.

armstrong marina and beer hall.

wednesday, october 1, 2014, is the day we became "home marina-less."  my two ducks got fed one last time.  they wouldn't go with me to the shallows but waited until i brought out their bowls.  it was strange - every time i tried to walk to the fixed dock, instead of following, they would turn and face the other way.  they finally just got up on the floating dock.  i guess you can't get more indication than that - where are our bowls???  we left without much fanfare.  only robert, who works at regatta point, saw us leave. it's a bit sad to think that even if/when we come back, slip G-30 will no longer be ours - you know, my ducks, good neighbors, great view.... but we have been waiting for this moment for years - to become nautical gypsies and now, here we are! 

last duck feeding

october 1 is also opening day for the oyster season.  you couldn't sleep in if you wanted to.  there was a constant roar of engines from o'dark early as workboats left the creek.  the watermen are not allowed to start tonging until sunrise so they leave early to position themselves over the designated "open rock."  as soon as that sun comes up, the tongs drop into the water.  as we came out of the broad creek channel, we saw them immediately.  it was like a war zone with the oyster fleet all clumped up together in one spot, weaving in and out amongst themselves.  it was really quite a sight - a very chesapeake tradition - graceful chesapeake bay workboats all dressed up in their oyster rigs.  we just loved it. 

the rappahannock oyster fleet

oyster rigged

well, we are official snowbirds now except that we are heading north first before we head south.  it seems kind of anti-climactic really but we have a number of obligations to fulfill before we do the hard-core south thing.  the funny thing is that we were headed into the wind and against the tide, letting us know that we were going the WRONG way.  sailboats would go by with full sail, aided by the wind and tide and flying, and here we were, plodding along, heavy with water and our STUFF and not full of fuel YET!  but that's okay - we were off to see old friends.  on our first day of this epic journey, we were out for a short cruise to the little wicomico to the armstrong marina and beer hall to see good friends, tommy and marie, and to see how the baby oysters have fared. 

you know you are good friends when you all take turns with the handheld vacuum cleaner to rid the screened-in porch of stink bugs and that is essentially what we were doing at the armstrong's while getting each other caught up on stuff.  unfortunately, the armstrong marina and beer hall's porch was being attacked by those horrible stink bugs :( 

yuck stink bug!