22 October 2012 Deltaville, Virginia
We had another restless night with my Man-flu, but I felt a little bit more energetic today, so I spent most of the day running a new antenna cable for the satellite phone. It was a real mission - clear the lazarette of all the junk that we store in there, remove the old cable, then run the new cable through the arch tubing, along the lazarette and then along the back of seven lockers. I was glad when I finished after five hours of cursing.
In middle of the job, I borrowed John’s car again and picked up our gas bottle, thankfully they’ve been able to replace the valve. I called in at Nauti-Nell’s consignment store and picked my things which have been on sale for three months – nothing sold. I’ve now got three large hatches and a 35lb CQR anchor cluttering up our deck. I’ve added them to our For Sale notice in the marina lounge.
Having installed the antenna cable, I played with the satellite phone and tried to get it to connect to my laptop. I had a massive scare when trying to install a driver – the laptop crashed with the “Blue Screen of Death” and it took me an hour to recover it. I then rang the support desk at Ocens and they sorted out the correct driver, so I now have a working satellite data system – we can send and receive email from anywhere in the world – yahoo!
We invited Joe & Lizbet from “San Miguel” over for a beer or four.
23 October 2012 Deltaville, Virginia
We spent the whole morning running around, shopping and picking up things that we’d ordered. Chuck swapped me a case of beer for one of my old hatches and Ed in the marina office bought the two directors chairs for $70, which is better than throwing them in the skip.
In the afternoon, I tidied up some wiring and fitted the projector screen permanently in place. I still need to install the media player into a permanent position, but our home entertainment theatre is near completion.
We went to “Nuwam” for dinner with Robert and Heidi who treated us to fresh oysters and mahi-mahi. Unfortunately, my new crown (fitted here in August) came loose during the meal which dampened my spirits a little bit.
24 October 2012 Deltaville, Virginia
I rang the dentist at eight o’clock, but their Deltaville surgery is closed today. They offered me an appointment at another surgery which is 25 miles away, but I have no way of getting there, so I arranged to see them tomorrow morning. In desperation, I pushed my crown back onto the tooth and it seemed to “click” into place and held okay.
We’ve done a lot of motoring since I last did a service on the engine in Maine, so with a feeling of doom, I decided to service the engine and the generator. After prevaricating for forty five minutes, I checked how many hours we’ve run the engine since the last service and found to my joy that we still have another 60 hours to go!
The next job on my list was to change the hoses that bring sea water from the sea cock to the engine. This is another job that I’ve been putting off, but it actually turned out to be fairly straight forward. It was made easier by my recent purchase of a “hose pick”. This tool makes it very simple to remove hoses – I’ve had to use screwdrivers and a Stanley knife to remove the damn things up to now. This is the best eight dollars that I’ve spent in a long time.
The afternoon was spent doing a few more little jobs and preparing to leave the day after tomorrow. Glenys found a leak on the dinghy and patched it. Hopefully this fixed the damn leak that has forced me to pump the dinghy up every day for the past two months.
25 October 2012 Deltaville, Virginia
I went to the dentist at half past eight, thinking that they would just stick the crown back on. The dentist was very apologetic and said that some of my tooth had pulled off with the crown and he wanted to have a new crown made. That will take a week, but the last thing I want is a dodgy tooth when I’m 30 days from land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean …
Before agreeing, I double checked that this new crown wasn’t going to cost me another $1200, but was assured that this would be fixed free of charge. I was in the chair for over an hour while he put a couple of pins into the tooth and built it up so that there’s a lot more surface area on which to stick the new crown.
There’s a big hurricane (Sandy) coming north through Cuba and the Bahamas. It’s forecast to track a few hundred miles off Florida, Georgia and South Carolina and is expected to hit the US coast somewhere north of the Chesapeake. The weather forecasters are not too sure where it is going and there’s some uncertainty about how much wind we’ll get here.
After a lot of deliberation, we decided that it would be better to head south down to the Inter-Coastal Waterway, south of Norfolk, to be in more sheltered waters. After a telephone conversation with Steve from “Celebration” who knows the area well, we’ve decided to sail down to Great Bridge tomorrow. This small town is on a canal behind a lock and has a couple of free docks where we can tie up. If Hurricane Sandy is going to produce winds greater than 40 knots then there’s a very protected marina in Great Bridge where hopefully, we’ll be able to find shelter.
We feel happier that we’re doing something positive to protect Alba rather than hanging around Deltaville. We’ll have to hire a car and drive back to see the dentist in a week’s time, but that’s only an hour’s drive and we can see a little bit more of Virginia.
26 October 2012 Deltaville to Old Comfort Point, Virginia
We set off at seven o’clock and had a great sail south. The winds picked up slowly from 15 knots to 25 knots, but at least it was behind us. As we approached Norfolk, it started to rain which made it a bit miserable.
On the way down, we rang the marina in Great Bridge and found that they were completely full because of Hurricane Sandy. It appears that everyone else has had the same idea to get behind the lock and we suspect that the public docks in Great Bridge will be chocker block as well. This gave us a dilemma about where to go. We talked to Andrew from “Eye Candy” who is in the public dock in Portsmouth. He told us that there were six boats in the small dock, but they could probably squeeze us in.
We decided to go to the Old Comfort Point anchorage and see what the weather forecast is tomorrow morning before we make a final decision on where to go. On the way into the anchorage, Glenys noticed that the Comfort Point marina had a sign saying that it was now open to the public (it used to be a military-only marina.) After we anchored, I rang the marina and found out that they have free berths and it will only cost $1.50 per foot. We booked ourselves in for three nights from tomorrow, which is when the weather will be worst.
It was windy as night fell, but we were pretty secure with good holding for the anchor.
27 October 2012 Old Comfort Point, Virginia
We had a restless night. I was woken at three o’clock by the wind generator whirring like a dervish, so I turned it off. It was difficult to get back to sleep after that because I was worrying about Hurricane Sandy. The wind seemed to be stronger than forecast, so had Sandy intensified or the track changed?
We listened to the weather forecast over breakfast. Hurricane Sandy has 75 knots winds and is expected to pass to the east of us. On Sunday it will curve inland and hit the coast on the border between Delaware and New Jersey which is only 150 miles to the north of where we are. They’re predicting sustained winds over 40 knots on Sunday and Monday with gusts as high as 55 knots which is pretty gnarly. There was no point in waiting around, so by half past eight we were motoring into the marina.
We spent the whole of the morning preparing the boat for high winds. I doubled up all of the ropes tying up us to the floating dock and the piles. We removed the head sails, took down the bimini and lashed the frame down. I put the dinghy on the front deck and wandered around packing away anything loose like the dan buoy, fishing rods, buckets, etc. By lunch time we were ready, so it was then a matter of waiting for the storm to arrive.
There’s a going to be a storm surge on Sunday night and Monday morning, which will raise the level of the high tide by up to four feet. This means that the protective wall around the marina may be underwater and any waves from the west will come into the marina. The marina staff have told us that we need to be off the boat if the winds pick up above 40 knots because the floating docks get bounced around so much that it’s almost impossible to walk on them. They’ve arranged that we can use the yacht club building, which is not being used, but is clean and pleasant. There are a couple of other transient yachts booked into the marina, so we might all be camped out on Sunday night.
It started raining in the afternoon, so I lurked around below while Glenys went to do some laundry. The wind was only 25 knots as darkness fell, so we cracked open a bottle of wine and watched a good movie.
28 October 2012 Old Comfort Point, Virginia
The wind wasn't too bad last night. It’s still from the north so the marina is fairly well protected by the land and trees. The forecast is for the wind to increase to 35 to 40 knots with gusts to around 55 knots this afternoon and overnight – it’s going to rain most of the day, but we’re nice and snug in our berth.
One of the irritating things about going into a US marina is that we hardly use any of the facilities – most of the time it’s too inconvenient to walk to use the showers in the evening, so we use our own. The shore power is of no use to us because our electrical system is 230V at 50 Hz. The USA power is all 60Hz, so we can’t use it at all – we can’t even use our battery charger. As a result, I’m having to run the generator twice a day to top up our batteries. The only thing that we use is the toilets.
After lunch, we went for a walk into Pheobus which is a mile or so away. We realised how strong the wind was as we staggered across an exposed bridge on the way. The marina is quite sheltered by trees and buildings from the North east. There wasn’t much to the town, but we managed to buy a loaf of bread and some milk at a garage. We were wet through when we arrived back at the boat – our waterproof clothing is not waterproof enough.
The wind backed to the north in the evening and picked up to 40 knots with gusts over 50 knots. We shut the curtains and had another TV dinner.
29 October 2012 Old Comfort Point, Virginia
It rained and the wind howled all night, but we slept soundly. The temperature has dropped with the cold north wind, so it was hard to drag myself out of the warm duvet this morning. The wind had dropped slightly, but it was still pouring it down. At high tide this morning, the predicted storm surge had raised the water level by an additional four feet and the protective wall around the marina was underwater. Fortunately the wind was still from the north east, so the waves were not affecting us much.
After breakfast, I donned full foul weather gear and went outside to check the ropes and to move the running backstays that were starting to slap against the mast as the wind backed to the north west. I was drenched after a few minutes of padding around the deck.
The wind backed more to the west as the day drew on and increased in strength to 45 knots with gusts up to 60 knots. By late afternoon, the wind was on our port beam and we had waves coming into the marina hitting our port aft quarter. It was extremely bouncy with the ropes creaking and waves slapping under our sugar scoop with a loud bang. In addition, it stayed cold and our cabin heater has decided to play silly buggers and won’t come on - it wasn’t very pleasant.
Just before dark, I spotted Dave from a couple of boats away trying to get a rope over a pile, so I put on my foul weather gear and went to help him. In return, he helped me to shorten our port side aft lines and put a third line over the piling. The waves were getting stronger and I wanted to back up the two ropes that I had on the piling already. I also put another rope on the port forward side to back up a dodgy looking cleat on the floating dock.
Before dinner, I downloaded the latest weather forecast and grib files over the satellite phone and the wind is forecast to increase a little until midnight and back more to the south-west, so it looks like it’s going to get worse before it gets better. I think that we’ll have another night in the marina tomorrow night before it calms down enough for us to leave. We’ve had enough now and just need to get through tonight.
On the bright side, I love my satellite phone – I can now get weather forecasts anywhere in the world and at any time …
30 October 2012 Old Comfort Point, Virginia
That is probably the worst night that I’ve ever spent on a boat. The wind maintained 45-50 knots, gusting up to 60 knots directly on our port stern quarter. In our back cabin, the noise was deafening – wind howling, ropes creaking ominously, three foot waves beating against our stern with a very loud “BANG” every so often as a big wave slapped under our sugar scoop.
It was freezing and I had to put on a t-shirt and socks to keep warm. I drifted in and out of a disturbed doze and woke at four o’clock when the motion changed as the wind backed and came directly onto our stern. Now we had a flatter motion, but the rudder rattled worryingly as the water swirled around our stern. To make matters worse, there was a strange throbbing vibration that came and went every fifteen minutes or so.
Life seemed a little better by daylight as the wind had abated slightly, but it was still very cold. The forecast was for the wind to stay at 25-35 knots today and drop tonight. We’ll have to stay another night and hopefully the weather will be good enough to move tomorrow.
Our cabin heater refuses to work at all now, so I left Glenys reading a book wrapped up in a duvet and braved the wind and rain to go to the marina office to see if I could download a service manual for the cabin heater. For some reason, the marina office was officially closed, but I managed to catch the manager as he popped in.
I told him that this was the worst protected marina that I’ve ever stayed in, but we had no choice and have to stay another night because the whole of Hampton Roads is closed by the Port Captain. I also told him that there was no way that I was going to pay to stay another night. He just shrugged and said okay.
I sat in the laundry room (which was only slightly warmer than Alba) and got a good internet connection. I managed to download a service manual for the heater, updated our web site and answered emails from family and friends who were worried about us being so close to Hurricane Sandy. I looked up some information on Sandy, which had the lowest pressure (943mb) making it the strongest storm ever to make landfall north of Cape Hatteras. There were lots of photos of the damage caused further north, so I guess that we’ve been lucky.
Back on the boat, I tried to sort out the problem with the cabin heater, but it’s such a complicated little device with many sensors and cut-outs. I'm not getting any meaningful error signals, so I rang a Webasto dealer in Portsmouth and arranged to get someone to look at it tomorrow.
I inspected the rudder to make sure that there was nothing seriously wrong. I know that the lower bearing is a little sloppy, but is sound. I tightened the steering cables a little bit, but other than that everything looks to be okay. All I can assume is that last night there was a current hitting us directly astern and just rattling our heavy rudder. I also tracked down the strange throbbing vibration down to the forestay - it was resonating in the gusts of wind because we've taken the genoa off. I tied a rope onto it to add some tension and the vibration reduced.
The wind dropped some more over the afternoon and by nightfall it was down to 20-30 knots – very mild. Guess what – we watched a movie and had an early night.
31 October 2012 Old Comfort Point to Portsmouth, Virginia
It was blue skies when we woke up, but still gusting 35 knots and very cold. The weather forecast was for 15-20 knot winds dropping to 10-15 later, so we got ready to leave. We put up the bimini, but couldn’t put on our two head sails because the wind was too strong and from the wrong direction.
It was ten o’clock by the time that we’d untangled the spider’s web of twelve ropes that we’d put out to secure us in the berth. The wind was still blowing 20-25 knots on our port quarter, so it took a bit of coordination to drop the ropes in the correct sequence and motor backwards out between the piles without hitting them – thank goodness for the bow thruster.
It was with a great sense of relief that we motored out of the marina. In retrospect, Old Comfort Point Marina was a terrible choice to weather out a hurricane. I thought that the worst winds would be from the north-east to north-west and didn’t expect the winds to back around to the south-west. As they say “Experience comes from surviving a disaster” and I think that I’ll make different decisions next time. It didn’t help that the protection in the marina is the worst that I’ve ever experienced, but on the positive side, we didn’t die and Alba escaped without a scratch.
We put up the main sail and motored directly into the wind towards Norfolk –it was very bouncy, with big waves crashing across the foredeck because the tide was against the wind. As we were passing the Navy docks, a warship called us on the VHF radio because it was leaving a dock directly in front of us - we had to cross over to the other side of the channel to keep out of the way. Then a massive container ship pulled out in front of us, so we had to duck across to the other side of the channel to get out of its way.
It took us a couple of hours to get to Virginia Boat and Yacht Marina, which is down a small channel off the Elizabeth River. The marina is a little shabby, but the engineering services look top class. A technician came to look at our Webasto heater, plugged in his diagnostic computer and decided that the cabin temperature sensor was faulty – the heater won’t start because it thinks that our cabin is at 60°C ! Webasto gave him a price for a replacement which was a staggering $350 for the sensor – it’s only a small thermistor on a long wire.
The technician then suggested an alternative – there’s a plug in resistor to replace the expensive cabin sensor that will cost only $35 and will force the unit to use an internal temperature sensor. The heater won’t be able to maintain a precise temperature in the cabin, so we’ll have to keep turning it on and off manually. It didn’t take me long to decide that to save $315, I’ll be quite happy to turn it on and off when we need heat. We should be in a warmer climate in six weeks and won’t need to switch it on for at least another year.
Everyone in the marina is really friendly. It’s only a small place and within an hour of arriving, Jim from “Seascape” had lent us a small electrical heater and two extension cables leading back to his boat. Another resident, Mike offered to drive us to the local supermarket and the Bill (the marina manager) said that we can stay at no cost for a few days while the technician sorts out our heater. The spare part for the heater is not going to arrive until the day after tomorrow, so we’ve hired a car for tomorrow which will allow us to drive back to Deltaville to go to the dentist to get my new crown put on.
It’s Halloween today, so I rigged up a ghoul flying above our boat. I bought the ghoul for $6 in a pharmacy a few weeks ago. The Halloween merchandise on sale is staggering. All of the stores have hundreds of low cost costumes, life sized skeletons, masks, face paint, etc, etc. The thing that amazes me is the low cost of the costumes – you could be a very classy vampire for only $40.
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