15 October 2012 West Yeocomic River, Virginia
The forecast was for a cold front to go through the area during the afternoon, so we decided to stay put and go down to Deltaville tomorrow. The winds were predicted to be 25 knot winds veering from south-west to north-west tonight, so we moved across the river just off Great House Point which was more protected from the West. It seemed to be better holding too, which was an added bonus.
In anticipation of having loads of stuff delivered to us when we get to Deltaville, we went through our storage lockers and looked what we could get rid of – unfortunately not a lot. To make matters worse, I went through all of my spare parts and decided that I need to buy quite a few things before we leave the states, fortunately they are small (but expensive things) like impellers and service kits.
The wind wasn’t too bad as darkness fell.
16 October 2012 West Yeocomic River to Deltaville, Virginia
We left at crack of dawn – bloody freezing. We had fairly strong winds for first half, but at least it was blue skies.
When we arrived in Deltaville in the late afternoon, I went to see Chuck (our “project manager”) to make sure that he’s got everything in hand. We should start getting things done tomorrow, which will be a miracle.
We stopped off at the boat yard stores, picked up a load of parcels that have been delivered and retired back to the boat to have an early Christmas. Miraculously most things have arrived safely; there a couple of things still on the way, but our new satellite phone isn’t among the parcels. I know that it’s been delivered here, but we’ve not got it – very worrying.
17 October 2012 Deltaville, Virginia
I feel like I’ve never left Deltaville. I hassled Chuck four or five times today to get things moving. Jerry Latell from the sail loft came out with Clifton the rigger to look at my sails and rig. The conclusion was that the rig was fine – the rake and bend in the mast looked okay. Jerry thought that the high boom was okay, but he took away the genoa and stay sail to shorten the webbing loops on the luff on both sails.
I totally failed to get Mack the engineer on board to look at the water leak on our generator. Eventually after numerous phone calls and trips ashore to hassle Chuck, he rang me back and told us to go onto the end of one of the marina docks, so that Mack can get access to the boat tomorrow.
While waiting around, I started to run the wiring to the LED projector. It was one of those jobs that I wish I’d never started - a small hole in a cabin wall turned into a big hole as I tried to get the connectors on the wires though and, to make matters worse, it’s a structural bulkhead with thick fibre-glass in the middle of the wall – hard work and I’ve now got a big hole in our beautiful mahogany wall to repair.
18 October 2012 Deltaville, Virginia
Mack was on board first thing in the morning and sorted out the leaking water hose on the generator. He undid two of the generator mounts and was able to lift the generator enough to get at the heat exchanger hose clamps. It only took him a couple of hours to replace the hose and check it over – it would have taken me days.
I used one of the courtesy bicycles and went shopping for parts and more spares ready for when we leave the USA. I managed to blow $400 in two hours and I’ve still got over thirty things on my list. Back on the boat, I fitted our new car stereo unit, which is only a cheap one, but plays MP3 files and has two Aux ports for connecting to other devices. I’ll now be able to wire in our media player, so that we can play the sound from films in our new home movie theatre.
In the afternoon, I borrowed the courtesy car and took some small fabrication jobs around to Wes. Hopefully, he’ll be able to do them early next week. Meanwhile Glenys was stocking up at the supermarket. On the way back, we picked up the sails which now have webbing loops that are four inches shorter.
Robert and Heidi from “Nuwam” came for dinner and told us about their trip to Cuba. They also enthused about Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, so I’m trying to work those islands into our plan. We’re now thinking that we’ll miss out the Bahamas, go down through Florida to Key West and then across to Havana for Christmas in Cuba.
19 October 2012 Deltaville, Virginia
I had a terrible night’s sleep. I've had a cold for a few days now and spent most of last night coughing, clearing my throat and blowing my nose - it’s turned into proper Man-flu. Glenys was kept awake for most of the night. When we lived in a house, she used to get up and go to sleep in our spare bedroom, but she can’t escape me because the boat is such a mess at the moment with stuff piled everywhere.
Clifton the rigger arrived at half past seven, attached the rod kicker with Monel rivets and re-tuned the standing rigging. Hopefully, the new rivets will stand the test of time. We filled up with diesel and went back out to anchor.
Glenys dug out her new sewing machine and started to make a deployment bag for the Series Drogue, while I borrowed a car from John on “Hope Floats” to get our cooking gas bottle filled. Unfortunately, the valve is leaking and they have to replace the valve. It’s an aluminium bottle with some corrosion around the neck where the valve screws in, so they may not be able to get it out without damaging the threads. Fingers crossed that they can replace it okay because it will cost $250 for a new propane bottle.
In the afternoon, we put the jib and staysail back on and thankfully, I can get the luffs tensioned properly. I then went up the mast and fitted a new wind sensor, so our wind instrument now displays the wind direction – we’ve had a smiley face covering the wind instrument display since May…
The boat looked like a bomb had hit it, with new gear and cardboard boxes piled everywhere , so I did a major tidy up and got everything ship shape ready to cause more chaos tomorrow. I played around with our satellite phones now that we’ve got an activated SIM card. The old one works, so I’ll be selling that on eBay and the new one works much better. I now need to spend a day in the marina lounge, downloading the software and figuring out how to get weather sent to me via satellite phone.
We had a quiet night in and watched a film with great sound through our new stereo system.
20 October 2012 Deltaville, Virginia
We had another restless night with my Man-flu. I wasn’t feeling up to doing much work so I had a tidy up day and pulled out all of the stuff out of the lockers under the front berth. We have some lovely solid wood, folding director’s chairs that are intended to be used to seat people at the dining table. We’ve only used them once in eighteen months, so I’ve reluctantly decided that they have to go. I also found some other junk hidden away including a nasty-looking 8 foot trident fishing spear and a small spear gun. Some of it went to the skip and the chairs have gone onto a For Sale notice in the Marina Lounge.
I rigged up our new asymmetrical spinnaker, with a snap shackle on the tack and a nice new 7/16” sheet. I pulled it up the mast to check that the length of the sleeve was okay and then reluctantly stowed it away – I can’t wait for a low wind day now…
We watched a film in the evening again – this is rapidly turning into a habit – TV dinners...
21 October 2012 Deltaville, Virginia
Yet another restless night with my Man-flu. I decided to spend most of the day on internet related stuff, so I went into the marina lounge to get a decent connection. I did the accounts, paid off our bulging credit cards, downloaded software for the satellite phone and upgraded the iPad which keeps insisting that it connects to the internet to do anything.
I was so tired in the afternoon that I had to have a nap – I’ve never been very good at being ill.
Glenys did some more sewing. The zips on the spray hood have been falling apart from the exposure to the sun, so she replaced them. She also made a mosquito cover for the security bars for the companionway.
The fridge and freezer are still leaking, so I’ve bought some R134a refrigerant which contains some dye that fluoresces when an ultraviolet light is shone on it. I recharged the fridge and freezer with this stuff and will check in a couple of days to see if I can see the dye leaking out of a pipe or fitting somewhere.
We watched another film – its definitely a habit now.