Ahoy, Here's the thing. Sitting for 7 months at the Port Kinsale Marina is not the way to keep thinking happy thoughts about the boating life. I would usually start the whining process just as LeRoy was finishing up a particularly frustrating bit of repair. For instance, LeRoy carefully removed the hot water tank and replaced all the leaking fittings. He had to cut the electrical wires to remove the tank so that he could do the repairs. He made the repairs, rewired the electricity and then struggled to get it remounted under our starboard settee in the main salon. It continued to leak. I believe it was at this point that I told LeRoy that my life sucked and I needed a real home. The boating life wasn't enough fun for all the frustrations, and yadda yadda yadda. LeRoy looked like a whipped puppy and started to check out homes in the Merritt Island part of Florida. I was still on the fence a little. After all, we put all this work into the boat, now was the time to head for the islands and start our big journey into more distant and exotic places. Then again, the homes we were looking at had pools, and huge kitchens with vaulted ceilings, and garden tubs. Just a tub would have made me happy, so just imagine what a garden tub with jets does for me. I was starting to get all tingly about a new life not featuring bilges, and mildew and tiny gnats. { We have been living with tiny gnats for 7 months. Apparently they were breeding in the pool under our hot water tank.) Having convinced LeRoy that our marriage needed a house, off he drove to Florida. The plan was to leave the car in Florida so that we would have wheels to go look at homes. I told him to take a couple extra days and get an overview of what was available, so that we could make good use of our time. I could look at the homes on line, but LeRoy was there and could really check things out. I'm was getting pretty jazzed about buying a house. I decided not to travel with him so that I could get things stowed away and have the boat ready to leave as soon as he got back. It went a lot faster without LeRoy around. The storage is now well organized and everything is in the computer with the location. No more wondering where that sailbag is, or what did I do with that electrical tape? From now on all I have to say is "Just look at the list honey". If it's not on the list, I didn't store it and it's not my responsibility. Ahhhh that felt good just typing the words. You have no idea what it is like to have some control over my environment. Speaking of environment, I've been taking super long walks through the countryside. Each week I say the foliage can't get any better than this, and each week it gets even more spectacular. We have wild turkeys in the woods near the marina. I feel like I'm living a fall poster. A scenic marina surrounded with a forest of fall foliage, foxes and turkeys bounding through the forest and weather that is just starting to get crisp. Pretty idyllic for marina life. LeRoy drove down to Florida, looked around for a couple of days then flew back to Norfolk. His Nephew, Allen, and his family picked him up and kindly brought him back up here to Kinsale. Allen's son, Nathan, was thrilled to see our big TV screen in our cabin. He was very polite but I could tell that he wanted to watch some big deal sports event on TV. He is quite the football fan and there was some big game getting into the final quarter or some such. Every once in a while squeals of delight would emanate from the forward cabin, while the grownups got caught up on each others lives. Wanting to win his affection, I let him choose a sharks tooth from my collection. I nearly had his attention for a minute, then a big play happened. That's ok, I know the way to a young man's heart. It is his birthday soon, and we found the perfect gift. This will give him one more focus besides sports. Gyromax to the rescue. But I digress.... So LeRoy got back to the boat and said we were sailing off the next morning. I knew we were leaving soon, but I had figured that meant in a day or two. I specifically asked him if the oil filters had been changed and was he sure he didn't need to spend a day making sure we were ready? Nope, he was all set and we were leaving first thing in the morning. He said we could make Norfolk in one day. I warned him that I wasn't up for pushing it our first day of cruising after sitting for 7 months. No, I wanted a nice easy day to get used to boating again. LeRoy was able to weave us out of the small river and out into the Potomac. The weather was perfect but a tad chilly. One of the things I wasn't responsible for was my foul weather gear. LeRoy put it somewhere on the boat. Sigh. Anyway, I layered up and off we motored. There was not enough wind to sail and the wind was directly on the bow. LeRoy is checking his charts and gives me this mirthful little grin. "You're going to get a kick out of this. I'm off by a river. I was thinking we could still make Deltaville even with this late start, but I don't think we can. You have a choice. I can try to wend my way down a shallow river that is unfamiliar to me in the dark, or we can continue on down to Waterside in Norfolk." He pointed out that all the anchoring spots were way out of the way in unfamiliar shallow places and gave me a look, like you really don't want me to do that do you? I thought it over. Big deep Chesapeake Bay and then big deep channel into Norfolk or doing something the captain isn't happy about doing. Hmmm let me think...I told him I thought it would be fabulous to keep going into Norfolk. I reminded him that we would have a full moon. The sunset was just getting gorgeous when the engine started making a different sounds. I don't like diesel engines that make different sounds. We started losing RPMs and I started losing my happy glow. LeRoy says it has to be dirty filters. I blinked several times, harking back to the moment when I asked if the oil had been changed recently and did he need to check that before we left. So I'm sitting in the cockpit behind the wheel at sunset, with no engine. We will discuss the running lights next. It didn't take long for LeRoy to change the Racor external fuel filter, then he had me rev the engine. White smoke billowed out of the exhaust port. Not a good thing. Back down he ducked and replaced the fuel filter on the engine itself. That takes a little longer and is a tad messy. Sigh. So the engine is running cleanly once again. We never worried about the filter on the engine before because we always used a 2 micron filter in the racor, but someone suggested to us that the 10 micron cartridge would put less strain on the fuel pump. We never had any problems with the filters or fuel pump before, so we are going back to the 2 micron cartridge. LeRoy cleaned up the mess and off we went. My anxiety level is a tad higher as I wasn't sure why our filters had clogged up. I was thinking maybe sitting for 7 months had let bad stuff grow in our fuel. Now about the running lights. You need running lights while motoring in the dark. A green one on the starboard bow and a red one on the port bow. Plus a white light in the stern. Our bow lights were only working intermittently. I wasn't happy. My Captain is bounding up to the bow to lean way over to look see if the running lights are on. I'm running through the emergency procedures should said Captain fall overboard in the dark. LeRoy finally turned on our tricolor lights on the top of the mast. This is intended to be used with a boat under sail, but desperate times call for compromise. At least we had something that told other boaters we were in the area. I was busy keeping an eye on boat traffic and trying to relax. I saw a large red glow in the East that I couldn't explain. I thought maybe it was a light shining off the side of some large cruise liner or something. I kept an eye on it and it turned into a gorgeous golden moon. Ok, this was starting to be a nice trip again. How exciting to be out at night. The turn into Hampton roads got a little bumpy from the swells off the Atlantic. I was getting anxious again, as there is always a lot of barge traffic and huge cruise liners about. Not to mention frisky little ferry boats zipping back and forth across the channel. I was helping look for markers, but they are mixed in with all the bridge tunnel lights and street lights etc. Near our destination I noticed that the lights were blinking out and a huge black something was dead ahead. The huge black something had red and green steady lights. Markers blink. Fixed red and green lights mean something is headed straight for you. I said in a quivery voice, "Uh, Honey, what is that big black thing?" My Captain strains to look then does a quick course adjustment as a huge barge the size of a condo goes sliding by in the night, pushed by a very large tugboat. My that was exciting. LeRoy had called ahead and arranged for Justin, (a dock hand at the marina) to meet us at the slip and help us tie up. A huge motor yacht was tied up in the entrance, so that LeRoy had some tricky maneuvering to do, but he brought us in and backed into the slip with no problems. We got tied up, hooked up and ready for the night. It is 11:15 PM. Now here is the thing. LeRoy is all happy, cuz we made it to Norfolk in record time, we had a lovely moonlight cruise and why am I suddenly all cranky. I couldn't rant and rave while my Captain had to focus on getting us to Norfolk, but I definitely thought I had a rant coming. He owed me a " I messed up Honey, I'm so sorry I put you through all that." Nope, what I got was. "What are you unhappy about. We are safe, and we are here in Norfolk a day early. We saved the marina fees we would have spent in Deltaville." The worst was, "It was your choice remember?" Choice, I had a choice, I was starting to sputter at this point. LeRoy was too tired to listen to a rant. Ladies, please....am I right? Send email. The trouble is ranting just isn't satisfying when everything turns out ok. I felt cheated. It didn't help that the next day had high winds and rain. LeRoy looked all smug and said "See, we would have been sailing in that mess and it would have been a bigger chore getting tied up." I can't win. The next morning LeRoy used my hair dryer to heat up the shower so that I could be all toasty when I got out of bed and took my shower. He also bought a lovely vase that matches our teal colors on the settee in the main cabin. So ok, now that the anxiety is over, it was a lovely moonlit night and the lights of the city were beautiful and everything did turn out perfect. Still I think I will just peruse those brochures LeRoy brought back from the various developers. Those vaulted ceilings and pools, with spas and waterfall features, are looking good. Safely at Waterside in Norfolk, Charlotte P.S. We have to move down the channel to the Atlantic Yacht Basin to get our fuel pumped out and cleaned. I don't know if we still had water left over from our fuel problems we had in the Bahamas, which may have allowed algae to grow or if we got dirty fuel or what, but it needs to be cleaned. At least we have experience dealing with it, and here in the states there is a man that will take care of it for us and save most of the fuel. Sigh. Did I mention garden tubs and walk in closets? [permalink][comments?][Karma: 0 ( + / - )]
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Leaving Kinsale to search for the sun