hampton, the dismal swamp and elizabeth city.

two days in deltaville where we did some provisioning and said last minute goodbyes and then it was off to hampton on a drop-dead gorgeous day - perfect for a cruising trawler.  we were accompanied for a little bit by a pod of dolphins that played with our bow wave.  it is always a thrill to see dolphins - it never gets old.  we stopped at the sunset boating center in hampton to fuel up - 300 gallons yikes! - and then off to the hampton public piers to settle in.  we hadn't even finished up tying off our lines when already someone from the SAIL rally came over looking for help.  sigh...  and so it begins.  i swear, i start off these things hating everyone for being so needy and hating tom for being so enabling until i'm too tired to even feel anything anymore and that's even before we get going! 

okay, the snowbird rendezvous first which, as usual, was its typical organized self thanks largely to charlene clark of hampton, who, unfortunately, was recovering from some kind of bug.  we saw some old friends from last year and the year before and made some new ones.  for this year, the SAIL rally members were part of the snowbird rendezvous as well, attending mark doyle's ICW 101.  we were also scheduled to have signature canvas make a set of chaps for our dinghy and it was a production getting the dinghy down on the dock to be measured in that tight little space.  tom was in and out but mostly out and when it came time to raise the dinghy up again to its usual home on the bridge, he was nowhere to be found so i had to supervise that project and find bodies to help.  that is when i discovered that my crocs were missing.  apparently, tom put them on and walked away because all of his shoes were still on the boat!  and he didn't notice that the shoes were a little small???  in any case, that alone was indicative of the week tom was having.  i mostly stayed home and worked or took aurora out for long walks.  as is usual with the snowbird rendezvous, food was plentiful! 

when the rendezvous was over, we had two days before the official start of the SAIL rally - not that it made a difference since the members were mostly there and tom was kept very busy inspecting boats, solving problems and giving advice.  then disaster struck.  aurora went into heat.  she is 7 months old after all and we simply did not have the time to have her spayed and said we would have it done in FL by the vet who took care of consuelo.  it has been a while since i have had to deal with this.  joan conover, the seven seas cruising association representative who was taking care of inspecting onboard communications, brought me a package of disposable diapers - the human kind.  one merely needs to cut a hole in the right spot to pull the tail through.  but it is still a pain and poor aurora was just confused about the whole diaper thing. so, well, there is that to deal with now for the next month, on top of everything else, good grief. 

we finally left hampton on friday, october 23, 2015.  we were to be the "sweeper boat," the last one and let me tell you, when everyone starts their engines all at the same time and then take their lovely time leaving, we sure ate a lot of diesel exhaust.  i was running up and down the dock and telling everyone, "go on, get out of here before you kill the rest of us!"

sunrise at hampton, ready to roll, let's go ducklings!

it got chilly so in celebration, i wore my duckling socks

a railroad bridge had been a problem at norfolk causing a lot of bottlenecks but by the time we left, it was no longer a problem, however, there was congestion at the deep creek lock from the pileup and that took a while and we had to anchor and wait for a bit.  some people dragged.  here we go again...  sigh.  i'd say we dropped and pulled up anchor about five times before we finally got into the lock and by the time we got out, we had just enough time to get to the dismal swamp welcome center before dark.  the fleet was scattered, some rafted up at the welcome center, some at the south mills wall past the bridge, one at arbuckle landing and three at the new free dock north of arbuckle.  the last boat to arrive at the welcome center decided not to stop at the arbuckle landing saying it looked too much like "deliverance" and that really cracked me up. the guy was terrified of snakes.  i haven't seen a snake yet but i did see a beaver that day!

the great dismal swamp canal

that evening, aurora got to let out some steam by playing with a fixed tibetan spaniel named mocha who tried to hump her anyway.  tom and i were worried because we hit something along the way and we had a vibration afterwards indicating damage to the propeller.  we could hardly sleep that night and we had to get up early because the people we were rafted to were planning to catch the first locking at south mills.  in the end, we decided to go on as well, find some deep water and then run the boat hard to do a diagnostic.  al, the lockmaster at south mills, told us that he'd lock us through special if we decided to come back.  that was the temporary plan since we were looking forward to robert peek's presentation at the welcome center.  but it took us forever to find a straightaway with deep water and by the time we did, we were pretty close to elizabeth city.  the good news was that the diagnostic did not indicate a need to haul out and change propellers immediately.  we had our good  friend, aurora's uncle norman, lined up all ready to drive down from norfolk, too, just in case.

passing the south mills wall in search of deep water, getting ready to enter the south mills lock

so we never got back to the south mills wall as was the original plan and ended up docking at elizabeth city instead.  at least we got to go to the albemarle museum this time.  that same afternoon, three boats from the fleet arrived.  we were a bit disappointed with them not staying for the scheduled presentation - they missed something really good.  but they got turned off by the raftup at the welcome center and i suppose i can understand that, but there was lots of room on the south mills wall and a van came to pick the others up to bring them to the welcome center - they could have stayed.  the explanation was that they didn't want to run out of space at the free docks in elizabeth city.  geez...  oh well, you get all kinds.  those who stayed were blown away by the presentation.  yes, robert peek is definitely worth the price of admission!  we managed to get caught up with him while we were at the deep creek lock since he was working there that day.  we told him that the same day he had us trapped there for three hours last spring on our way north was the day uncle norman drove us two hours one way to pick up aurora at the beagle farm!    

anyway, today, the rest of the fleet arrived and this afternoon, was the rose buddy reception for cruisers that i did not attend because i was too busy working.  the original plan was to leave for dowry creek on tuesday, october 27, 2015, because we were supposed to tour the blimp factory tomorrow.  unfortunately, that tour got canceled because some military blimp arrived and they shut down the place secondary to security reasons so the plan changed to leave tomorrow instead of the next day but now weather has come up and everything is up in the air about whether to stay or go.  i would just as soon stay and avoid getting beat up on the albemarle sound and alligator river but the rest of the week is not looking much better either.  the advice to the fleet was to stay one day and go the next, but ultimately, each boat will need to make its individual decision. tom will be up very early in the morning checking the weather and conferring with mark.  some of the boats were STRONGLY advised to stay and i think they had no problems with that.  quite a few members of this rally have a bit more experience than last year's group.  but not all....

the elizabeth II was visiting from roanoke island

quite frankly, there isn't a whole lot in elizabeth city to recommend it even though it calls itself the "harbor of hospitality" - the courtesy docks are nice but the museum wasn't open today nor will it be open tomorrow.  i have to work anyway so it makes no difference to me.  i just wish aurora would quit bleeding all over my boat.  she keeps picking at the diapers.  i hear this "heat' thing takes at least three weeks.  wonderful.  oh well, just this once.  and when we get settled in cocoa, off she goes to the vet to get spayed!

annapolis.

the journey south actually really begins in annapolis at the boat show.  we only stayed one night in oxford, unloaded the stuff from the flying bridge and brought them to henry's and then left quickly for mill creek to beat the coming weather. it was a very easy and uneventful cruise but john had already warned us that their little sailboat, moonjelly, was occupying "our" slip as they had just installed a lift for her in her own slip and she had not been moved yet and so we were supposed to sort that all out once we got there.  no problem - we anchored in front of the house, dropped the dinghy, moved moonjelly enough so that we could get our butt into the slip, dinghied back to our boat, picked up the anchor, backed into the slip, tied up, and then rafted moonjelly up to our starboard side.  however, it rained a little bit before all of this and then it got really steamy afterwards and by the time all of it was said and done, tom and i were both just soaked in sweat.   "marinas by menocal" looked like a "real" marina with four boats at the dock and the neighbor's enormous sailing catamaran just adjacent.  but we were there and secure except that sometime around 9 or 10 that night, tom, who had already gone to bed, was awakened by TADHANA moving around more than usual in her slip (the weather had been progressively deteriorating).  he said that he had not expected the current wind direction which is why he didn't bother with  OUR storm lines that were supposed to go on the neighbor's piling especially since getting moonjelly situated had been so involved.   well, he stewed about that for a while until i said why don't we just put them on since we're both awake anyway?  the dinghy was already down but it was full of rain water and, in fact, the gas tank was floating upside down in it!  so the dinghy had to be bailed out first and the motor started and run to make sure it wouldn't conk out on him out there.  i took our two long lines up to the bow and tom came around with the dinghy to bring the ends over to and around the neighbor's piling and back to the boat.  all of this was going on in heavy rain and howling winds and by the time that things were secure to tom's satisfaction, we were, AGAIN, for the second time that day, both soaking wet! 

for the next few days, everyone was watching the weather very closely with hurricane joaquin looming in the background but it eventually turned out to sea and all of us in the chesapeake breathed a collective sigh of relief.  a repeat of hurricane isabel could have been really ugly so we were extremely lucky!  however, there was still the nor'easter to deal with and water levels were very high with lots of coastal flooding.  we did have to wear boots one evening to wade back to the boat after dinner up at the house as the water had come up over the fixed dock.  we also went from having to run the A/C to running the heater.  when that weather system finally petered out, people came crawling out of their burrows and the days were gorgeous.   

annapolis was home for tom and myself for a number of years and it is ALWAYS good to return, get caught up with what's new and improved, get together with old friends and eat food we hadn't had for a while!  carolyn came to visit and meet aurora and brought a ledo's bacon pizza for lunch - my favorite!  teresa picked us up and drove to adam's ribs in edgewater (tom was very happy about the ribs).  teresa also brought me a pretzel dog from the amish market the day she and i went out just us girls together to do some shopping - it was just like the good old days where she would mutter over my lack of good taste and despair over the fact that i don't care whether things match or not.  we had dinner at a thai restaurant and i had to bring half of my meal home because although it was very good ("drunken noodle"), it was also very spicy and i didn't want to have to pay for overindulging the next day.  there were, of course, our meals up at the house with john and heidi - good food, great conversation, and, as always, fabulous company.

aurora got to play often with millie, the golden doodle next door (they were like mutt and jeff!) and we got to personally thank sally, heidi's mom, who sent us aurora's baby quilt - such a wonderful gift!  we certainly saw a number of old friends and made some new ones and had an absolutely GRAND time with our hosts.   although we do love anchoring, it is very nice to be docked and plugged in to run the A/C, heat or the W/D.  mill creek is certainly close enough to annapolis city dock to dinghy over on a good day and because we were there nearly two weeks, we did have some really good weather days (and some pretty bad ones at the start!).

boat show week arrived and it got busy for tom.   i took a day off from work and went to the show and enjoyed walking around and looking at stuff while tom worked.  the days went by very quickly and before we knew it, it was time to leave.  we got up early on the day of departure so that we could get going with the sun.  tom decided to have my leftover "drunken noodle" for breakfast which probably didn't go well with his morning coffee.  it certainly would not have been my choice for breakfast food!  at least he didn't eat ALL of my leftover pizza which i had on sunday when he wasn't around to fry bacon for our usual sunday morning pancakes and bacon.  the fact of the matter is that we ate maybe a little too well while at annapolis.  and i forgot to mention the pit beef sandwich which we ALWAYS get at the boat show.  yummy yum yum.

sunrise as we left mill creek with the Bay Bridge in the background

our original plan was to stop at solomons to fuel up but because of weather concerns, we decided to make it a long day and head directly to deltaville while the going was good and get the potomac river crossing out of the way in good weather.  we will fuel up in hampton instead.  and wouldn't you know it, the SAIL rally hasn't started yet and we already have one of this year's ducklings with us.  needless to say, tom is, again, on the phone, on the radio, and i can't hear myself think, let alone work.  well, here we go again....  and i also have a bored little puppy whom i have to entertain from time to time while underway.  poor thing - we should have been settled in solomons at 1400h and instead we kept going and reached deltaville at 2000h, in the dark!  at least she is pad trained so that part is not an issue.  if this had been consuelo, i would have been a wreck about such a long cruising day, but aurora did spectacularly well.  getting here in the dark wasn't too bad except that tom goes absolutely bonkers if there is any bit of light in the cabin including the lights coming from the instruments, while, i, on the other hand can't see anything without "some" light.  he talks about night blindness but it just doesn't bother me to the same degree. if anything, his constant agitation about it bothers me more!  bottom line - cruising in the dark, for us, really isn't ideal.  it's hard when you're not on the same page about critical things like light. 

in any case, here we are in deltaville after more than 12 hours underway and staying an extra day because of weather.  it doesn't seem too bad out there right now but deltaville is a good place to provision and quite frankly, both tom and i are tired.  today is my birthday and i tried to sleep in - "try" being the operative word.  tom thought i should have pancakes and bacon for a birthday breakfast and he fried up a mess of bacon but i had to make the pancakes and do the dishes!  hahaha....  and trying to catch up with the greeters...  good thing birthdays come only once a year.  i swear, i didn't think i had THAT many friends!  it is nice to be remembered though :)  i may take the day off from work - maybe...

sunset just north of windmill point - we knew that we were going to cross the rappahannock river in the dark!