1 June 2012 Marsh Harbour, Abacos, Bahamas
I woke up at quarter past six and dragged myself out of bed to listen to the weather forecast on the SSB radio. There’s a cold front coming down through Florida which will give strong winds and squalls to the north of us tonight and then we should still have a three day weather window before the next low forms on Tuesday 5th. We’re planning to leave for Charleston tomorrow.
I did a couple of runs to the fuel dock to fill the jerry can and top up the diesel tanks. We then pottered around for the rest of the day, reading and getting ready to sail tomorrow. I’ve managed to catch a cold, have a sore throat and I’m feeling a little low – “man flu” I guess.
The weather was squally in the afternoon, but cleared up later. We had an early night and plan to leave first thing in the morning.
2 June 2012 Marsh Harbour to Cocoa, Florida (Day 1)
We had a massive thunderstorm come over us last night at three o'clock. Lashing rain, 35 knot winds and spectacular lightning – I even disconnected my laptop in case we had a lightning strike on Alba.
We climbed out of bed at six o’clock. I downloaded the latest grib file and found that the low that was going to form on Tuesday is now forecast for Monday night and will be giving us gale force winds as we approach Charleston. Glenys and I had another weather routing discussion and changed our plans again, aiming to leave in the afternoon and head for Cape Canaveral in Florida which is only 220 miles, which should get us in on Monday before the low forms. We’ll still have 600 miles to travel north to get to Chesapeake, but at least we’ll be able to do it in smaller one or two day hops up the US coast to avoid this awful weather.
We decided to leave after lunch, to make sure that all the current squally weather had passed us, which gave me time to do a few little jobs.
We’re going to have to use our holding tank to “store” our toilet effluent when we’re in the States. We have a 35 litre stainless steel tank in a cupboard in the front heads. There’s no gauge on the tank, and if it gets full, it will overflow - dumping effluent out of a hull fitting in the side of our hull above the waterline. It will be a little bit embarrassing to be pumping “stuff” out of the side of the boat.
I did an experiment by flushing clean water through the toilet into the holding tank and found that 200 pumps of the toilet will fill the tank. At an average of 15-20 pumps per flush that means that we can use the toilet 10-14 times before we need to empty the tank. I’ve sellotaped a piece of paper onto the cupboard above the toilet so that we can record how many pumps we’ve done since the last time it was emptied - life is wonderful on a luxury yacht.
When we arrive in Cape Canaveral, we’ll have to go into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). This is a channel through coastal wetlands that goes from Florida to Virginia. It’s supposed to be dredged to 4 metres, but is shoaling in some places and may be a challenge to our 2 metre draft. In addition, there are a large number of fixed bridges and power cables that stretch across the ICW at a height of 65 feet. The specification for Alba says that the mast height without instruments is 61.5 feet.
I went up the mast to see how much our instruments stick up above the mast and found that our VHF aerial is four feet long meaning that our total mast height above the water is 65.5 feet. This means that we won’t be able to get under bridges at high tide which will severely cramp our movements. Perhaps we’ll not spend much time in the ICW.
We hung around reading and waiting for the rest of the morning. After lunch, we got ready for sea and I started to pull up the anchor, then Glenys noticed that the depth gauge was flickering between 1.9 and 2 metres – we were aground because we were at low tide. We were so excited about leaving the Bahamas that we hadn’t even bothered to look at the tides. We had to wait another two hours for the tide to come in…
We negotiated our way out of the shallow harbour and set off across the lagoon towards Man-O-War channel five miles away. The wind was blowing W 20-25 knots from the west and there were some dark looking rain showers to windward of us. After ten minutes, I noticed that the wind direction instrument wasn’t working, so thinking that I’d damaged something when I went up the mast, we anchored and I went up the mast again. Everything looked OK and there didn’t seem to be anything that I could easily fix, so we upped anchor and carried on.
Meanwhile, two squalls had passed either side of us with heavy rain. Then at the channel through the reef, there were over-falls caused by the strong westerly winds encountering the strong tidal current heading east. Our Karma was very low at this point, but we persevered and soon popped out in to the open ocean, which was calmer than inside the reef.
We had a great sail for four or five hours, but by eight o’clock in the evening, the wind had dropped and Glenys had to turn on the engine. We had a 1½ knot current against us which was very annoying, dropping our speed over the ground down to 3-4 knots.
3 June 2012 Marsh Harbour to Cocoa, Florida (Day 2)
The wind picked up enough for us to sail at four o'clock in the morning - I unfurled the genoa and shook out the reefs in the main. We were getting 5-6 knots of boat speed, but we still have a one knot current against us.
By six o’clock, I had to turn the engine on again because the wind dropped and veered to be coming straight at us. We motored all day with blue skies, 5 knot winds and a 3 foot swell, but at least the counter current had disappeared.
We just read books or slept for most of the day. The highlight of the day was giving myself a No.12 haircut, which didn’t turn out too well, but at least there’s no one else to look at me.
4 June 2012 Marsh Harbour to Cocoa, Florida (Day 3)
We continued motoring for most of the night, but at least we had a fantastic full moon which illuminated the gently rolling, three foot seas. At four o’clock, the wind finally picked up enough so that we could sail.
As we approached Cape Canaveral, we had three big vessels pass close to us, heading towards the same port. It’s much, much busier than the Caribbean and keeping check on the ships made my 4-7 watch fly by.
We arrived just outside the port entrance at eight o’clock and hove-to, while I tried to sort out the customs clearance procedure. I rang the Canaveral Port Authority who told me that I had to call an 800 number to talk to the Small Craft Division of Homeland Security to clear in because they only deal with cruise ships and large vessels. When I called the Small Craft Division number, they told me that I could only clear in when I was tied up somewhere, so we continued into the port looking for a dock.
The port is very busy and is mostly geared up for large shipping – there’s also a military base with naval security boats wandering around to protect it. I took a picture of a submarine anyway – it’s amazing how difficult they are to see. We couldn’t find any public docks – just a couple of marinas which looked busy, so we continued towards Cocoa to anchor there before clearing in.
There’s a lifting “Bascule” bridge and a lock leading from the Port to the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). It was quite scary calling the bridge operator on the VHF radio and asking for it to be opened. All traffic was immediately halted on a major, three-lane highway for little old us. Once through the bridge we called the lock keeper, who again opens on demand. The lock is massive; about 400 metres long and 25 metres wide and we were the only ones in there – seems a waste of resources, but who am I to complain.
The waterway from Canaveral Port to the Indian River passes through a nature reserve and there’s a wide variety of wild life. We saw Bottlenosed Dolphins in the port and Glenys had to steer us around three manatees to get into the lock. Along the waterway, we saw ospreys, scarlet ibis, herons, pelicans, cormorants and there were fish jumping out of the water all of the time - amazing.
We passed through another lifting bridge and came to the main ICW where we encountered our first “fixed” bridge, which has a nominal clearance of 65 feet. There are tidal gauges which show the exact clearance under the bridges and this one was showing 64 feet – there was no way that we would get underneath without destroying our 4 foot VHF antenna. I checked the tide times for Cape Canaveral which showed that we were on a rapidly falling tide, so we waited for the tide to drop.
While we were waiting, Glenys rang Boat US and subscribed to their towing service for the princely sum of $165 US. We’re going to be spending a lot of time in the USA navigating in very shallow waters and the risk of going aground is pretty high especially with our relatively deep, 2 metre draft. The Boat US towing service gives us unlimited tows to get us off “soft groundings”, i.e. they’ll come and rescue us when we hit the bottom.
After twenty minutes, the tide gauge still showed 64 feet, so I got the hump and decided to remove the bloody VHF antenna. We anchored at the edge of the ICW and I climbed up the mast again for the third time in a week. It was a bit of a struggle (aren’t all little jobs on a yacht?), but I safely removed the aerial and we now have a mast height of 62½ feet. We’ll have to use our handheld VHF radio for a while.
After sneaking under the bridge, we motored for a mile and anchored off Cocoa in 3.5 metres of water. I rang the Small Craft Division of Home Land Security to clear in. They took all of our details and then told me that all of the crew have to report to the Cape Canaveral office within 24 hours. I said OK, disconnected and then nearly screamed. So we have to go back to Canaveral Port where we’ve just been told that they only handle large vessels – God give me strength…
We had lunch to boost my blood sugar level and reduce my temper. We then motored under the next bridge and anchored in 3 metres off Cocoa Village, which is a very nice anchorage. I put the dinghy into the water and lowered our 15hp outboard in place, but it wouldn’t start. Could anything else go wrong today? I took the carburettor off, cleaned it and managed to get the outboard started, but I don’t know what’s causing these problems.
By now it was three o'clock and our day was in tatters, so we decided to sort out the customs crap today. We went into Cocoa Village and took a taxi back to Cape Canaveral. The Homeland Security guy was very pleasant and I asked if we could have more than the normal six months’ immigration entry. He said that he might be able to do it, but we’d have to come back tomorrow when his supervisor will be there. At $60US for a taxi, I don’t think so. In fact, he ended up making a mistake and giving us seven months, which means that we can stay until the beginning of January which will be helpful.
When got back to Cocoa, we went straight into a bar for a nice cold beer. It was like being on a different planet, sitting in an air-conditioned American bar, watching American TV and gazing out at the people wandering by. Cocoa is a very quaint tourist town with narrow streets, lots of trendy cafes and antique shops. Everything is very clean and orderly. We became convinced that we were in The Truman Show. Surely that car’s been past this corner before? Is the TV repeating itself? Haven’t we seen that guy on the bike before?
We staggered back to the boat, Glenys rustled up egg and chips and we collapsed into bed - what a day!
5 June 2012 Cocoa, Florida
It was my 56th Birthday today. Glenys hasn’t bought me any presents, but I’m not that bothered. Is that what happens when you get older?
I spent the morning looking at routes to get us further north. We need either a four or five day window to get us to Beaufort or a three day window to get us to Charleston.
I dropped the dinghy into the water to go into town, but the outboard wouldn’t start again. I reckon that I’ve got dirty fuel or water in the fuel tank. I couldn’t be bothered to take the outboard to bits to clean the carburettor, so I fitted our small 2.5hp outboard and we slowly chugged to the dinghy dock. We went to a café for lunch and I was able to use their wireless internet connection to pick up the weather. There’s another front giving unsettled weather in the area for the next three days, but it looks good from Saturday 9th onwards.
We went into the tourist office to get some local information and found out that there’s no supermarket or even a grocery shop within walking distance. Also there’s no Laundromat anywhere near here - it’s just a pretty little tourist town, so we’re going to go up the ICW to Titusville tomorrow for a couple of nights and then come back down here on Friday. Hopefully they will have better boating facilities there.
On the way back to Alba, we had a chat with Bill on “Gaia” and he confirmed that there’s no tide in this part of the ICW. I guess that’s why there’s a lock at Cape Canaveral – duh! It’s a good job that I removed the VHF antenna from the top of the mast yesterday because we’d have never got under that first fixed bridge – we’d have been waiting forever for the tide to drop…
After a couple of hours back on the boat, we went out for a Mexican meal for my birthday treat. It was OK, but too much cheese, not enough cilantro and far, far too large. We’re going to start ordering one meal between the two of us – kind of like old age pensioners do…
We went for a walk to help digest the huge meal and came across a garden that had a cactus plants climbing up the trees. The cacti had hundreds of huge white flowers which looked spectacular. A local lady told us that they’re called Night Blooming Cereus which only flower once a year and each flower only lasts a night – it’s nice that they did it on my birthday.
6 June 2012 Cocoa to Titusville, Florida
After breakfast, we motored for fifteen miles along the ICW to Titusville. There’s a huge mooring field outside the Municipal Marina which forced us to anchor ½ mile from the marina entrance in the middle of nowhere. We dragged on our first attempt to anchor, but it seemed to hold OK in a slightly different place.
We went into the marina, and then had a walk around. In 1996, we spent over a month here on Glencora before we sailed back across the Atlantic to the UK. There are quite a few changes, a huge shopping mall across the road had been demolished and our favourite sea food restaurant closed down eight years ago. Titusville is a sleepy, spread out place with not much going for it apart from a good marina and nice marina staff. To make matters worse, when NASA finished the space shuttle program, over 30,000 jobs were lost in the local area.
We only just made it back to Alba before a huge thunderstorm came over and gave us 30 knot winds and driving rain – at least it tested the holding of the anchor before it went dark.
7 June 2012 Titusville to Cocoa, Florida
A huge thunderstorm came through in the middle of the night again with high winds – we were glad that we’re tucked up in bed rather than being at sea. It soon passed and the wind dropped off to nothing which meant that the mosquitos arrived. Goodness knows how they found us because the nearest land is ½ mile away. Anyway, I was up at four o’clock dancing around with the mosquito zapper.
In the morning, Glenys chugged off to the launderette while I started to sort out the dirty fuel and our 15hp outboard. Ten minutes after she left, another big thunderstorm rolled in - she only just made it into the marina before the heavy rain started. I had a cup of tea and waited until the rain had stopped – funny how I wanted the comfort of a nice cuppa in the miserable weather.
I poured most of the fuel from the outboard tank into a jerry can to re-use and then emptied the remaining couple of litres into some plastic bottles to throw away. There was definitely water in the bottom of the tank. I removed the carburettor and found traces of water in the float chamber as well, so I ‘m fairly convinced that the problem is water in the fuel. I’ll buy some gasoline additive to put in the fuel that I have in jerry cans.
There was nothing else for us to do in Titusville, so we upped anchor and motored back to Cocoa, arriving mid-afternoon. We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon, before another huge thunderstorm came over giving us 35+ knot winds again. These storms are short-lived, but very powerful. The visibility drops to around 25 metres in the driving rain, the boat veers around in the gale force gusts, and the crack of thunder as lightning strikes nearby is deafening, making us duck our heads. Hopefully there won’t be any tomorrow.
8 June 2012 Cocoa, Florida
We spent the morning doing a few little jobs. Glenys applied seam-seal to the bimini and spray hood in an attempt to block off the various leaks that have developed. I went up the mast again, this time to see if I could get the wind direction indicator to work, but no luck I’m afraid.
I managed to get an internet connection and the weather looks very settled for the next five or so days, so we’ve decided that we’ll now head directly to the Chesapeake, which is 700 miles away. I spent the rest of the morning planning our course to Deltaville, where we’re going to be hauled out.
In the afternoon, I worked on producing a project plan and gathering information to get firm quotes when we arrive in Deltaville. It’s quite a complex set of jobs that we want to do, which will take some coordinating. I reckon that it’s all going to be pretty expensive – the replacement of the standing rigging is going to cost us at least £6,000. They say that owning a boat is like standing in a shower and ripping up £10 notes…
We went ashore in the late afternoon to go to a barbeque cook-out which was being held in the town park. There were lots of barbeque stalls, who compete against each other to produce the best food. There are cash prizes and it’s apparently a big thing over here. Unfortunately, it started to rain heavily, so we ended up visiting a couple of bars before going to a Brazilian restaurant for dinner.
9 June 2012 Cocoa to Old Comfort Point, Chesapeake (Day 1)
The alarm went off at quarter to six and a glance out of the window showed overcast skies and light rain – bummer. I put on my waterproof jacket and lifted the outboard and dinghy on deck. By half past seven, we were on our way motoring up the ICW. We anchored just past the last fixed bridge so that I could scurry up the mast for the fifth time in as many days, to replace the VHF antenna.
Our passage through the lock and the two lifting bridges was uneventful. We pulled into a marina in Canaveral Port to fill up with fuel and met Larry & Catherine on “No Boundaries” , who are going up to Chesapeake as well – looks like we've got a convoy.
We had very light winds and sunny skies until three o’clock when a huge bank of black clouds appeared in front of us. It was difficult to see which way it was moving, but we eventually changed course to go to the west of it. By four o'clock the skies had darkened and we were beating into 25 knot winds from the east. We listened to the weather channel on the VHF radio and heard that they were giving storm warnings for localised thunder storms with lightning and winds up to 45 knots – gulp!
The strong winds continued into the evening and we couldn’t seem to break out of the dark stormy looking skies, but at least we weren’t clobbered by anything really nasty. We picked up the Gulf Stream before dinner and were managing a speed of 8 -9 knots over the ground thanks to the 2-3 knot current. As the weather was so unsettled, we swapped watches and I did an 8-11 watch so that I could set up the sails and try to clear this horrible weather.
At eleven o’clock, the wind dropped and we were being bounced about in very confused seas, so I put on the engine. Glenys continued to motor for a couple of hours until the winds picked up again at half past one.
10 June 2012 Cocoa to Old Comfort Point, Chesapeake (Day 2)
It was very pleasant for a couple of hours, but by five o’clock we had thunderstorms building up in front of us. I put two reefs into the main and left Glenys to dodge the potential squalls. She woke me at eight o’clock and we did a forty degree turn to port to avoid a large squall before carrying on towards our next way point off Charleston.
Our 24 hour run at eleven o’clock was a satisfying 165 miles - we’ll be there a day early if we can keep this up. The rest of the day stayed overcast with 15-20 knot winds putting us on a fast reach, which combined with the Gulf Stream current, had us zipping along at 8-9 knots over the ground.
As evening approached, we couldn’t see any thunderstorms anywhere, which was encouraging. The first part of the night continued with the nice 15-20 knot southeast wind and we romped along in a reach. Unfortunately, we lost the favourable gulf stream current and picked up a slight current against us of ½ - 1 knot.
11 June 2012 Cocoa to Old Comfort Point, Chesapeake (Day 3)
The wind slowly dropped off overnight and Glenys had to put the engine on at the end of her 1-4 watch. It picked up again for a couple of hours on my 4-7 watch and I headed more westerly to try to find the elusive Gulf Stream, but had no luck.
By eight o’clock, we were back motoring and finally found a favourable ½ - 1 knot current from the Gulf Stream. Our 24 hour run was slightly better than yesterday at 170 miles. If we can keep this up, we’ll be going around Cape Hatteras tomorrow afternoon which would be great.
We’re just able to pick up the weather channels on VHF. Unfortunately, because we are 80 miles offshore, the transmission keeps fading in and out, so it is difficult to get an accurate picture, particularly because we don’t know what the forecast areas are. Glenys managed to extract some sense from the broadcasts and it sounds like we’re going to have south 10-20 knot winds tomorrow, which will good as we’re heading north-east until we get to Cape Hatteras.
Our course will then turn north-west as we sail the 100 miles up to the entrance the Chesapeake. The forecast on Wednesday 13th is not so good with the possibility of North 10-15 knot winds in the afternoon. One of the problems with Cape Hatteras is that once we’ve passed Beaufort, there’s nowhere to stop for 200 miles until we get into the Chesapeake. We plan to go for it and hope that the weather won’t be too bad on Wednesday. If we can keep up our average speed, I’m hoping that we’ll be anchored somewhere before dark on Wednesday.
The wind was fluky in the afternoon. We managed to sail for some of the time, but had to keep turning on the engine when the wind dropped below 10 knots. At least it was a lovely day with fluffy white clouds and only a small three foot swell – much better that the grey, unsettled weather that we’ve had for the past two days.
We’ve slotted into a rhythm again - we have our three hours watches over night, then I have a couple of hours’ kip in the morning and Glenys has a nap in the afternoon. As it was so calm, we had a shower for the first time in a couple of days – dirty buggers…
12 June 2012 Cocoa to Old Comfort Point, Chesapeake (Day 4)
The wind stayed light for most of the night - we had a couple of hours where we were able to sail, but the engine was soon back on.
Just after dawn, I reassessed our intended route and, because the weather was so settled, I decided to cut the corner and round Cape Hatteras very close to Diamond Shoals. I plotted waypoints to keep us five or so miles offshore and then head straight towards Deltaville. We still had 185 miles to go to Deltaville, but if we could maintain over five knots we should be there late tomorrow afternoon. It will mean that we’ll be passing through the Chesapeake Channel sometime after dawn tomorrow which will be fine by me. Having completed the planning, I turned north, with some excitement, towards the Chesapeake on the final leg of the passage.
By mid-morning, the wind had picked up from the south with 10 knots, so I poled out the genoa and we were able to sail again. We had a minor celebration when we finally passed 35° North latitude - our insurance company will be happier.
By lunchtime, the skies had become grey and overcast with nasty looking dark patches on the horizon – so much for the blues skies of yesterday. We had one small squall which gave us 25 knots winds and then it settled down to south-west 15 knots, which put us on a pleasant reach going along at 6 knots, albeit with drizzly rain.
I managed to hook a Dorado, but it got off just as I was trying to lift it on board. These fish have quite soft mouths and I reckon that the hook is just tearing out – I’ll have to get a longer gaff instead of trying to lift them on board with the line. Fortunately, an hour later, I hooked and landed a nice 10lb Tuna. I dropped the lure back into the water just to get it out of the way while I was cleaning the fish, leaving it trailing 3 metres behind the boat. To my amazement, I hooked another tuna, but I let it go – we’ve enough tuna to last us for the next three or four days.
Norfolk is a huge port and naval base located at the south end of Chesapeake Bay and there’s a massive amount of radio traffic with warships going out on manoeuvres, not to mention the commercial ships wandering in and out. We will need to sail across the busy shipping lanes, so I spent an hour looking at the charts and working out where we should go when we get there.
We had Tuna with Creamy Mushroom Sauce and mashed potatoes for dinner – yummy!
13 June 2012 Cocoa to Old Comfort Point, Chesapeake (Day 5)
The winds were from south at midnight and then veered to south-west. On my 10-1 watch, I put in a heavy reef in to slow us down – I didn’t want to get to the Norfolk shipping lanes before dawn.
Our timing was pretty perfect, but we had a two knot current against us as we approached Cape Henry, which made it very slow going. Then, as we were crossing the shipping lanes, the bloody wind veered and picked up from the north. There’s a huge road bridge that spans the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, with two gaps where there are tunnels to allow shipping though. There’s one passage to the west of Cape Henry going to Norfolk and the other one is to the North going up Chesapeake Bay – straight into the wind.
Glenys went to bed and I spent a frustrating three hours trying to motor 10 miles into five foot seas with 20-25 knots of wind and a two knot current against me. I persevered and finally made it through the gap by ten o’clock.
It was obvious that we weren’t going to be able to get to Deltaville before dark, so we set off hard on the wind trying to get to York River on the west side of the bay, which has a nice looking place called Sarah Creek. After an hour of teeth-jarring bashing, with no sign of the counter tidal current easing off, we decided it was pointless, so we turned downwind and headed south west for Norfolk – what a difference, the boat accelerated downwind and life was suddenly very pleasant.
As we approached the Norfolk shipping lane, a coast guard cutter put out a warning on the VHF radio that it was approaching Norfolk with Operation Bravo and that no vessel should approach within 500 yards - any violations would be a “federal offence enforced by deadly force if necessary”. We could see that the cutter was escorting a huge submarine – we kept well away…
We listened to the weather forecast - the strong, northerly winds are going to be here for at least another four days, so we plan to go into Norfolk and do some sightseeing. We rang Steve on “Celebration”, who we knew was the area and arranged to meet them in Norfolk tomorrow. This suits us fine because we’re feeling pretty shell shocked after 5 days at sea. We want to anchor somewhere quiet and sleep rather than trying to navigate the busy waters of Norfolk today.
We went up the Hampton River, where the cruising guide said there was an anchorage by the town, but it was very tight, so we ran away and anchored in Old Comfort Point, which is not very pretty, having a busy highway running along the side of it, but we’re all by ourselves in a huge anchorage.
We collapsed, had lunch and went to bed for a few hours. Our first cold beer was consumed at five o’clock precisely and, after a splendid dinner of Sweet and Sour Tuna, we sloped off to bed early.
In retrospect, it was a very good trip. We managed to read the weather correctly and did 700 miles in four days which is pretty good going – to put it in perspective, that’s the same distance as sailing from Plymouth to Lisbon.
14 June 2012 Old Comfort Point to Portsmouth, Chesapeake
It was relatively cold last night – the single sheets that we normally use weren’t adequate, so I had to get out of bed and get a light duvet. When I got up in the morning, it was overcast, windy and cold. I had to put on a fleece, which the first time I’ve had to do this since we moved onto Alba. We had a cup of tea after breakfast – nice and comforting and I even tested our cabin heater in case it gets any colder. We’re at 37° North now, which is level with the Algarve in Portugal, so I’m hoping that this is just unusual weather.
We lurked around in the morning, tidying up and doing a few jobs. I put the dinghy into the water and the outboard wouldn’t start again, which is a bit irritating because this is a new batch of fuel that bought in the Abacos about three weeks ago. I stripped down the carburettor again and magically it all works. I’m now wondering if the float valve is getting stuck – is it gummed up on the seat? I’ve put some fuel conditioner into all of the fuel that I have on board, so maybe that will help sort this problem out.
After lunch, we upped anchor and sailed to Portsmouth town anchorage. It’s a very impressive route because we went right past the US Navy dockyards where there are at least twenty warships including several aircraft carriers. The wind was 20-25 knots from the north east and it was perfect sailing conditions for us – we managed to sail all the way into the town anchorage with just the genoa.
We’re anchored right in the middle of the town with Norfolk on one side of the river and Portsmouth on the other side. Hopefully, there will be a supermarket nearby because we’ve run out of essentials – milk, eggs, orange juice, bread, etc.
Steve and Lynn from “Celebration” came for sun-downers. We last saw them in St Lucia last January and it was great to catch up with their travels. Glenys prepared some Seared Tuna which she cut into thin slices as an appetiser with Wasabi sauce – lovely…
15 June 2012 Norfolk, Chesapeake
Another chilly night, but we were snug under the duvet – I think that I like these cool mornings. I love this anchorage, there’s so much going on. First thing this morning, I poked my head out of the cockpit to find a huge warship slowly cruising by the anchorage just 50 metres in front of us.
With no eggs, milk or bread, breakfast was a challenge, but Glenys managed to rustle up fried potatoes, bacon, tomatoes, and baked beans – luxury. We went into Norfolk city centre. The dinghy dock is right in front of the Wisconsin, which is a huge Second World War battleship that is now a major visitor attraction. It’s a very impressive ship - we might play tourist and have a look at it in a couple of days’ time.
Norfolk is a big commercial centre with skyscraper office buildings; housing banks, solicitors and insurance companies. As well as looking around, we were on a mission to buy some food. We discovered a huge, glittering shopping mall, but no sign of any grocery stores. After asking quite a few people, we found out that there was a convenience store about half a mile out of the city centre. We eventually found it in a residential area, but it was very expensive, so we only bought some milk and orange juice – at least we can have a normal breakfast and a cup of tea tomorrow.
We cut our losses and went across the river to Portsmouth. The town quay was heaving with sailing boats because there’s a yacht race taking place tomorrow. We found a space to moor our dinghy and walked up the high street. It’s a much quainter town than Norfolk and we found a Dollar store that sold basic groceries. We also discovered a 7-11 store where we bought some beer and wine.
Glenys cooked the last of the Tuna and we had a quiet night in.
16 June 2012 Portsmouth, Chesapeake
We went into Portsmouth, visited the farmers market to buy a few vegetables, walked around the town and had a nice lunch in a small café. In the afternoon, we pottered around below decks because the wind is so cold.
I rang the boat yard at Deltaville and told them that we’ll be there on Tuesday 19th. I revised my project plan and printed out a new set of information for all the jobs that we’re going to do when we haul-out.
I had a chat with Steve from “Celebration” about security on the boat i.e. stopping someone robbing us when we’re asleep at night at anchor. He has some good ideas about what to do, which basically involves stopping the thief sneaking down into the boat, incapacitating him and then tying him up. I’ve been planning to add some metal bars to the rear hatch and the entrance into the saloon, which will sort out preventing access. I’d like to buy a Taser gun to incapacitate the thieves. However, I’ve been told that even though American citizens can easily buy one, it’s illegal to export a Taser, so I might have to rely on a couple of pepper spray guns that can shoot a stream of gel up to 12 feet. A small baseball bat will then allow me to make sure that the thief remains down while I tie him up with pre-looped cable ties. I’ll be tooling up soon.
We went over to “Celebration” in the evening and met Pat & Judy from “Thalia” and Bentley & Jim from “Salty Paws”. We had pizza – Lynn cooked the pizza bases and everyone brought their favourite toppings to complete the pizzas. It worked out well, apart from when I chipped a big lump off one of my molars on a particularly hard crust. Jim and Bentley brought their guitar and banjo, Steve dragged out his guitar and we had an entertaining evening with them playing various folk, blues and sea songs.
Glenys is now motivated to learn the concertina and I’ve decided to abandon playing the clarinet and learn to play a guitar – it’s much more sociable than having a two foot long plastic tube shoved in my mouth...
17 June 2012 Portsmouth to Old Comfort Point, Chesapeake
We went around to “Celebration” to ask Lynn if she could put a temporary filling into my broken tooth – fortunately she’s a dental technician, which is a fine display of synchronicity because it was her pizza crust that broke my tooth. I’m probably going to have to get it fixed properly when we’re in Deltaville, Lynn tells me that there’s another fracture line in the tooth. Goodness knows how much it will cost to get dental treatment in the States.
We called in at “Salty Paws” to drop off a Proclaimers album – last night I told them that it was brilliant, urban, angry, folk music. I hope that they like it - it’s always worrying to recommend music to people that you don’t know very well.
Putting on our tourist hats, we went over to Norfolk and spent a pleasant three hours looking at the battleship Wisconsin and the attached museum. The Wisconsin was launched two years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and has seen service in World War Two, Korea and the Gulf War. The hull is a beautiful shape and the guns are impressive. The ship’s profile is what I remember from the John Wayne type war films that I watched as a kid.….
We arrived back on Alba at three o’clock and then motor sailed back to Old Comfort Point to get a good start for the forty mile trip up to Deltaville tomorrow.
18 June 2012 Old Comfort Point to Deltaville, Chesapeake
We set off at half past seven with absolutely no wind, so it was a very boring, six hour motoring trip up to Deltaville. The only interesting part was the narrow winding channel into Jackson Creek, which is supposed to be dredged to three metres – we went gently went aground just next to a green marker, but I soon backed us off and found a deeper patch further away from the marker.
We anchored just outside Deltaville boat yard where we’ll be spending the next four to five weeks. Jackson Creek is a lovely little spot with nice houses with their own docks and green lawns sweeping down to the waterside.
We went ashore, met Chuck who is the project manager assigned to us and then walked into Deltaville town. Typical of American towns it is very spread out along a single road. There’s not a lot here apart from a very large West Marine chandlers and basic shops. We’ll have to get a car to get us to any big supermarkets or Walmart.
It warmed up in the afternoon – we were wearing fleeces on the trip up, but it was warm and sunny ashore.
19 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
I picked up Chuck from the dinghy dock and we went through the various jobs that I have planned. He took lots of notes and then went back to the office to plan resources and work out some costs.
Glenys paid $140US to the marina, so that we can use their facilities for a month. They’re pretty well set up with a small pool, showers, laundry, wireless internet, barbeque area, courtesy car for local trips, bicycles and, best of all, an air-conditioned lounge with a TV and comfy chairs.
I popped into the office to see Chuck and he told me that the yard might not be able to provide the resources to do the rigging – I was not very happy. I spent the rest of the afternoon working out a Plan B where we would only spend two weeks here to do some jobs and then return in September to get the standing rigging done.
20 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
I rang Chuck to see when he wanted to have a chat and he said that he’d not had a chance to work on my projects and could see me after lunch. I told him that I was feeling pretty cross that I’m being told that they don’t have enough resources to do the main work - I’d kept them informed about our arrival day and the work that I wanted doing, but now they can’t meet their commitments? He agreed to see me half an hour later...
I met his boss Sean and we went through everything. Sean said that they do have the resources to do all of the work that I want to do and they should be able to get it all done in my five week schedule. Only time will tell.
We went alongside the service dock ready to be hauled tomorrow. It was incredibly hot today – what a change from a couple of days ago. We spent the afternoon in the air-conditioned lounge; I spent my time re-planning the various jobs that I want to do.
21 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
It remained very hot all night – we didn’t sleep well.
Mac, one of the engineers came on board and we went out for a sea trial. He checked the revs and the temperature of the engine while I bumbled about at various speeds. He didn’t find much wrong with the actual engine, but thinks that the engine mounts are worn, causing excessive vibration, which is probably causing our problems with the leaking propeller shaft seal.
We then hung around waiting to he hauled out, it was so hot that we hid in the lounge again. They finally hauled us out at three o’clock, which was exciting and nerve wracking.
Once out of the water, they pressure washed the hull, so we retired to the swimming pool and chilled out. An hour later, I wandered up the boat yard to look for my boat – very odd.
To celebrate being on the hard, we went out for a meal and had sea food seeing as how we’re in a world-famous seafood area – I had a sea food medley with prawns, scallops and snow crab legs, which was brilliant.
22 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
It was very hot last night, but we had three fans going, so it was just about bearable.
This was our first day of work on the hard. Glenys started on the tedious job of scraping barnacles off the hull, while I researched which type of antifouling paint to put on. There’s only a few things that are more emotive to sailors than which antifoul to use - there’s so many different options; hard or ablative; copper or copper free; additional biocides; manufacturer; colour; etc.
I’ve decided that I want an ablative antifoul, which slowly leaches from the hull releasing the biocides – something similar to Interlux Micron Extra. There are some cheaper brands which allegedly do the same job. They will reduce the cost of the paint from $600US to $450US, but if I get it wrong, we’ll have lots of growth on the hull in 12 months’ time and we’ll have to haul out again, which could cost another $500 US - decisions, decisions.
I tackled our windlass, which has been making very ominous rumbling sounds and leaking seawater into the front cupboard when we are bashing to windward. My previous attempt in Curacao last September was a complete failure. I couldn’t even separate the two halves – the capstan is above deck and the motor and gearbox are below deck. Since then I’ve bought some spare bearings and seals, which is a good job because after struggling for a couple of hours, I managed to get it all apart and found that practically all the seals have collapsed. To make matters worse the main bearing just at deck level is completely rusted up and disintegrating. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to remove the old bearing from the deck base plate. If I have to get a new one, it will cost $450US.
Glenys borrowed one of the marina bikes and went into town to do some shopping. She came back with essentials like bread & coke and found out that the local hardware store (True Value) sell air-conditioner units for only $120.
We had to wait for an hour to use the marinas courtesy car and rushed into town to buy the air conditioner and a 100 foot extension cable. It only took me twenty minutes to set it up and what a difference – we sat indoors, had Garlic Prawns for dinner and luxuriated in the cold.
23 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
We slept like logs because it was so pleasantly cool.
I went to hardware store to get some more scrapers and chisels while Glenys went to Farmers Market at the nearby Maritime Museum - she found out that there’ll be a jazz band playing there tonight.
We spent the rest of the day scraping the hull. There’s over 400 square feet of hull surface and we have 50 barnacles per square foot – that’s 10,000 barnacles each. Each barnacle takes 4 scrapes with a 1” wide scraper, so that’s a total of 40,000 scrapes. It’s brutal work and we only completed half of the hull today.
Glenys nipped off early and went down to a local seafood store to buy some dinner before we went to the Maritime Museum. The event was really nice, with a good jazz band and lots of locals chilling out. We ate our crab balls and salad, then Chuck come over with some Blue crabs that he’d cooked in beer and vinegar in a portable steamer. We had no idea how to eat them, so he patiently showed us how to pull them apart and eat the sweet white meat. It’s very messy, but tasty – I wonder if it takes more energy to peel them than we get from the crabs.
24 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
We put the air conditioning on high all night, making it so cold that I had to get up and pull a duvet over me – brilliant!
We spent all day scraping the goddamn hull. It was slow going especially because people kept coming up and chatting to us. Steve and Lynn from “Celebration” even turned up. They’ve been hauled out in a boatyard in Urbana, which is only ten miles away. They’ve hired a car and are planning to visit family before coming back to their boat in September. Hopefully we’ll see them again before we head south.
In the evening, we went to a local restaurant called The Galley, where I was very brave and had soft shell crabs. These are blue crabs that have recently moulted their exoskeleton and are still soft. The whole crab is dipped in flour, pan fried then eaten whole – soft shell and all. They were OK, but I reckon that they were deep fried in chip fat as they were very, very greasy – fat just oozed out as I bit into them.
25 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
It was another nice cold night. It was very difficult to climb out of bed at quarter to seven because I ache all over from scraping. Mac, the engineer, turned up at half past seven and started to disconnect the generator ready to lift it out.
I went to see Chuck and tried to get some estimates from him for how much my jobs are going to cost. He’s not willing to commit to a fixed price and I don’t blame him because jobs on boats have a tendency to escalate as problems occur. However, to make a long story short, I reckon that it’s going to cost us about $20,000 including replacing the standing rigging, a couple of new winches, new running backstays, new engine mounts, new propeller shaft seal and miscellaneous work on the generator & engine.
Glenys got on with a few jobs on the hull - scraping and sanding, while I tried to get the rusted bearing out of the windlass base. I’ve soaked it in some strong penetrating oil for 24 hours and used an oxyacetylene torch to heat it up to try to loosed the corroded bearing. Unfortunately, I failed to move it at all, so I’ll have to buy a new base plate which I think will cost $500.
The travel lift turned up later in the morning and moved us further up the yard because there wasn’t enough room to get the crane in to lift our mast out. As soon as we were chocked up, the rigger (Clifton) appeared and inspected the rig, loosening the bottle screws ready to lift the mast off the boat. I talked him through the various jobs that I want doing and he seems pretty switched on which is encouraging.
After lunch, the crane arrived and we had a couple of hours of frenzied activity while the mast was lifted out – it all seemed to go well.
Mac then commandeered the crane to lift out the generator which didn’t go quite as smoothly. I gave him a hand because there was nobody else around to help him – the riggers all disappeared even though Mac helped them take off the mast. There’s an opening in the floor of our cockpit hatch which is directly above the generator and obviously intended to allow the generator to be removed. The generator is installed in a sound proof tray and it soon became apparent that the hatch isn’t big enough for the generator and the tray.
After an hour of sweating and cursing, we just managed to squeeze the damn thing out of the hole. Poor old Mac was sweating and cursing as he struggled to disconnect hoses and other bits down in the hole, while I stood in the cockpit telling the crane driver when to lift and lower the crane hook. At least I learned the hand signals to control a crane.
Meanwhile, Glenys did a load of washing and organised a hire car for a couple of weeks starting at the end of this week. We’re hoping that I’ll have agreed the scope of all the jobs with the yard by the end of the week, and we can disappear for a couple of weeks while they do the work. Glenys has arranged for us to go horse riding for four days while we’re away.
Rather than cook dinner, Glenys cycled into town and returned with a huge pizza that we devoured before collapsing into bed.
26 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
It was a beautiful morning, blue skies and a lovely chilly feel to it. We went shopping first thing. I dropped Glenys off at the supermarket and then went to the hardware store to buy antifoul paint, brushes and a few other things. I’ve finally decided to go with the cheaper stuff – hopefully it will be good and I won’t be cursing in a few months’ time.
Back on boat, Glenys continued to prepare the hull. When we were going to Curacao last September, we were caught out in a 40 knot gale, which resulted in some large patches of antifouling falling off the front of the hull. Rather than paying over $3,000 to have the antifouling sand blasted off, we’re just going to scrape off any loose stuff, sand the edges and hope that more paint doesn’t fall off.
I rang the USA distributor for the windlass and found to my horror that the lead time for the windlass base plate is six weeks. They seem very knowledgeable about it all and even told me that I would have to buy some other bits because Lofrans changed the design in 2002 a year after ours was installed. I told them that I wanted the part. I then went to the marina office to do some admin and emailed another distributor in the UK who might have a windlass base plate - I hope so, otherwise we’ll be stuck here for a couple of weeks more than we want.
Glenys washed the hull topsides ready to polish it, while I retreated down below to clean up the mess left when the generator was taken out - at least I had the air conditioning running while I was working in the stuffy engine room.
We painted the patches on the bottom – the idea is to give these areas a couple of extra coats of paint to build them up a bit before we put on the main two coats of paint. We had barbequed steak for dinner in the boatyard’s barbeque area – it was a good evening meeting Matt from “Troubadour” and Stan from “Green Eyes”.
27 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
Glenys spent all day polishing the topsides with a lovely little buffing machine that we bought for the princely sum of $28. After three hours she’d only done an eighth of the hull, so she changed strategy and concentrated on the waterline, so that we can put the masking tape on and paint the bottom tomorrow.
I had another project meeting with Chuck, they’ve not had time to do anything with the generator and I’m keen to find out if there is any more work to do on the components under the generator that probably haven’t seen the light of day for 12 years. Typical of boat yards, they are trying to make the job bigger than it should be. I made it quite clear to Chuck that I don’t want a major overhaul of the generator, I just want it cleaned up, the new engine mounts put on and refitted back in the boat.
I painted the steel frame that acts as a base for the generator, repaired a small section of fibreglass which covers the rudder bearing assembly and cleaned up the windlass shaft. The supplier in the UK doesn’t have the part in stock and will probably be quoting six weeks delivery as well. I helped Glenys with the topsides in the afternoon and we painted the knocked out areas on the bottom again – the first coat of antifoul should go on tomorrow.
We arranged a pot luck barbeque with some of the other boats in the yard. It was well attended and everyone was pretty jolly by the end of the evening. We met Mark & Julie from “Rachael”, Tom from “No Limits”, John from “Hope Floats” and Walter & Gwen from “Salt Shaker”
28 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
I helped Glenys with the topsides in the morning. She carried on buffing the water line with rubbing compound and I focused on cleaning the hull with some stuff called “On & Off” which contains three different types of acid. It might be nasty stuff, but it’s very effective, removing all sorts of stains from the gel coat.
After lunch, I borrowed the marina’s courtesy car again and nipped into town to buy a few things. I also arranged for someone to give us a quote for steam cleaning our carpets and the upholstery.
It was very warm today with temperatures approaching 100°F in the afternoon. We packed up at four o’clock because it was so damn hot. We’ve got the hull masked off and ready to be painted in the morning when it will be cooler.
We had soft shell crabs for dinner. I bought them this afternoon from the fish store. They cleaned them for me, which I believe consists of cutting off the crab’s face to kill them and then pulling out the lungs – nice. Glenys dipped them in spiced corn flour and sautéed them in butter – much, much better than the ones from the restaurant a few days ago. I found this description of soft shell crabs:
“Starting in May and throughout the summer, the blue crab abandons its shell and starts to form a new one, making its sweet, briny, delicious meat — usually incredibly tough to get at — immediately accessible. When the crab is moulting, in fact, practically the whole thing is edible, and the new shell is among the best parts. The combination of tenderness and crunch makes it one of the great delights of eating.
The shell remains soft for only a few hours after the crab has moulted, making timing just about everything for this industry, located mostly on the central Atlantic coast and most famously in Chesapeake Bay.”
I love them.
29 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
Glenys painted the hull with antifouling this morning – it looks good but there are a couple of small areas that have bubbled where there is obviously some loose paint. I guess that the thinners in the new paint has worked its way underneath the old stuff. We’ll just have to scrape these off tomorrow.
I slackened off the coupling to the gearbox and slide the prop shaft backwards to inspect it. Fortunately, it looks okay – there’s as few small spots of corrosion, but the shaft isn’t scored where it sits in the cutlass bearing. I’m quite relieved because Chuck said that a new prop shaft would cost about $2000!
I then removed the exhaust elbow from the engine. It was a major struggle removing the 3½” hose from the exhaust muffler – I had to hack it to bits with a Stanley knife and screwdriver to get it off. I cleaned up the face of the turbo – the last engineer to work on the engine said that the face was badly corroded, but it looks OK to me. I painted the new exhaust elbow and bought a new piece of 3½” exhaust hose, so I should be able to put it all back together tomorrow when the paint dries.
A guy came and collected us from Hertz Car Rental and took us back to Gloucester to sign all the paperwork. We then called in at Wal Mart and bought a cheap tent for $40. It’s Independence Day next Wednesday and there will be a lot of people on holiday next week. We’re planning to go walking in Shenandoah National Park and bought the tent in case we can’t find any other accommodation.
We bought some spare ribs and cooked them in the Marina’s barbeque area - this was a bit of a mistake because it was incredibly hot in there.
30 June 2012 Deltaville, Chesapeake
There was a big thunderstorm and heavy rain last night, so it was lovely and cool in the morning.
Glenys got on with painting the bottom, while I put the exhaust elbow back in and tidied up the engine room. My new guitar arrived in the morning, but I didn’t have time to play around with it very much.
It was blisteringly hot, so we packed up at lunch time and went into Deltaville to watch the Heritage Day/4th July celebrations. They had a small craft fair with some food stalls, so we had crab cakes for lunch and then waited in the shade for the parade. It was very disappointing, basically being a parade of vintage cars, a few sad looking floats put together by the local businesses and fire engines sounding their sirens – they are proud of their fire engines. There was no marching band, just two lonely teenage girls with cheerleader batons - it’s a small town thing that they put on for the kids, throwing out sweets and trinkets as the parade goes past.
We wandered back to the boat and Glenys went to the lounge to get internet access while I amused myself with my guitar. I’ve bought a video based teaching course which seems very good. I stupidly spent three hours trying to play the instrument, so my left hand finger tips are now very sore.