16 - Road Tripping

Well, we're back in Hampton, VA after a roundabout road trip that put almost 4000 miles on our rental car.  We took off from Hampton and drove to Louisville, KY for the wedding of our adorable niece Chelsea to her love Andrew!  The trip was pretty easy and the wedding was perfect!  Despite the cold weather, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and the time we got to spend with both families. 

 
We left Louisville and drove to Florida.   We both were able to get some "real" business done, Gary drove our wind generator down to Ft. Lauderdale for a quick repair, we were able to address a couple of  issues with rental houses, hook up with several of our amazing FL friends and try to get our car sold.  The trip was very successful but too short as we really needed to get back to Hampton and finish getting the boat ready for her next adventure.

 We've joined a group called the Salty Dawg Sailing Organization and are in their Fall 2018 Rally where we are heading to Virgin Gorda, BVI with about 30 other boats.  We leave in a week and as always, there are several items still on the honey do list.  The sails are ready to be put back on, the wind generator is back on, the engine maintenance is complete, the rigging repairs are almost done, the dinghy chaps are almost done and we've got our last minute shopping list compiled!!!! 

Until next post!

15 - Hanging out in the Chesapeake

 We left St. Michael’s, MD and had a great sail over to Solomon’s Island, MD.  A small but adorable town.  We anchored out and took the dingy into town. 

The local Holiday Inn has a great dingy dock for $2/day.  We were able to visit the library and catch up on some work, found a great seafood shop and bought some local rock fish (striped bass) for dinner since we don’t have a Maryland fishing license and were able to get some shopping done too.  It’s such a friendly little town.  While we were looking around at a local art gallery, the owner of the store offered us his truck in case we needed to do more grocery shopping.  We were fine but just amazed at the offer. 

We left Solomon’s Island and headed south to Reedville, VA.  We again found a great anchorage and got an amazing view of the full moon rise!!  The weather was more rain than not, so we spent the next day catching up on our reading and overall relaxing.  There didn’t seem to be anywhere to access town so we pulled up anchor and continued south.

Next, we pulled into Deltaville, VA.  We again found a comfortable anchorage and took the dinghy into a nearby marina.  A short walk and we were in the heart of town.  It’s a very small town but also incredibly friendly.  On our walk of about 1 mile, we were stopped by 2 different people who stopped in the middle of the road to ask us if we needed a ride anywhere.  An incredibly friendly small town!   We walked around the Deltaville Maritime museum but it seemed to have already closed for the season.

From Deltaville, we headed to Mob jack Bay, VA.  This was a great anchorage to wait out a small storm that was heading our way.  There was no town that we could easily get to so again, we decided to enjoy the day reading and relaxing!

Once the storm passed, we decided to head into Hampton, VA a couple of days early.  Hampton is the jumping off point for the 2018 Salty Dawg Rally.  We decided to join the rally and head to Virgin Gorda, BVI the first of November with about 75 other boats.  We knew we needed to get a few things taken care of on the boat before the trip so we rented the slip for the month, got a rental car and started making arrangements to spruce up the boat.   

First, we took our sails in to have them reconditioned (our main sail was actually beyond reconditioning so we had to order a new one), ordered a new Asymmetrical Spinnaker made so that we can better sail downwind, scheduled some routine maintenance and repairs on the engine and arranged for a rigger to come inspect and repair any of the rigging (this consists of the lines and metal shrouds that hold the mast upright and raise and lower the sails).

Next, we have been wanting to get chaps (protective covers) made for our dinghy for some time.  We called a few local canvas shops to find someone who could make one in the limited amount of time we had.  We found one who could do it but they were located in Deltaville (about an hour drive) and if they had to come to us, the price would be at least double.  Could we bring the boat to them? Well, as most people know, MaryAnn has always maintained that everyone needs their own engineer.  So, while she told the shop that we couldn’t possibly do that as we only have a rental car and not a truck, Pedro explained that we could simply deflate the dingy and slip it into the back of the SUV.  Well, we looked like complete hillbillies but the dingy is at the canvas shop and the chaps should be done by the end of the month.  Seriously, everyone needs their own engineer!

So with half of the tradespeople in the area working on various things for our boat, we’ve taken some time to explore Hampton and the surrounding area.  We’ve visited Fort Monroe a couple of times, a nearby nature reserve and taken the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel over to Virginia Beach.  Maryann’s parents were stationed in Virginia Beach when her dad was in the Navy and when she was young her family frequently vacationed there so she enjoyed trying to see if she could find some of the places they used to visit.  

 

 

We’ll be here for a few more days (they have named a few streets for us so we have to stick around some), we have a couple of road trips to make coming up and then back to the boat to finish prepping the boat and then we’re off.

Until next post!