Urbanna, VA

Wednesday

View from the town dock

We motored across the Rappahanock to Urbanna on Monday and anchored off the town dock.  The river was smooth enough to water ski on so there was no sailing that day. Urbanna is a great little historic town with just about everything a cruiser could want within easy walking distance of the harbor.  We did a walk about town, stopping by the grocery store for a few items.  Found a couple of thrift stores, several clothing/gift shops, and one really nice art gallery.  Washed our large pile of sweaty laundry at the very nice town dock facilities and got to sit in air conditioning while the clothes washed and dried.

Tuesday morning we went into town for breakfast at the drug store.  Quite a scene there with men sitting at one loop of the 50's-style soda fountain and women at the other.  We were told that all the latest gossip is discussed there every morning by the dozen or so folks who congregate there regularly.  We met the Urbanna mayor who moved one stool over in order to allow the four of us to sit together.  The breakfast special that morning was two biscuits with sausage gravy and two eggs for $3.95.  Such a deal.  We all had the special and discussed town issues and Carolina basketball with the mayor.

We're finally learning how “cruising” mode works from our friends on Polaris. Previously, Tom and I have rarely stayed in one place very long on our sailing trips. Usually a day or two in one place and we've moved on to new sites, thinking we needed to “see it all,” I suppose. Since hooking up with Polaris, we've stayed several days in one place, gaining time to explore the community at a much slower pace and in more detail. I like this much better. It is so much more relaxing.  Today we took a long, leisurely dinghy ride up the creek to explore areas we are unable to reach on the big boats.  Lots of pretty scenery with a mix of new, expensive houses along side older, been-here-forever small homes.

Kentris anchorage

Since we have some commitments at home in the next few weeks, we are planning to leave the boat here and come home on Friday. It has been a bit daunting to find an appropriate place to leave Kentris during this time. We thought we had it worked out one way but that fell through. Then we called around and found quite expensive rates at the marinas close by. We considered leaving her anchored right where we are currently, which has good holding and is well protected, but that was not our favorite option. This morning we found a dock to keep her at back in Irvington. If there is a major storm we'll have to come move her off the dock but hopefully that won't happen and we'll know she is well cared for while we're gone.

July 22, 2013

Getting ready to leave Irvington after a fun day yesterday. It was a lazy Sunday – slept late, ate a hearty breakfast, did a few boat chores and then went into town. We sat in a little coffee shop, The Local, drank iced coffee and soaked up the air conditioning while we indulged in free wifi.

Tom and I rode our bikes around town a bit after that and came across a pretty little vineyard that was offering wine tastings in the afternoon. After the Polaris crew got out of church our plans were to ride the trolley that took travelers to two other small towns in the area. Now it sounded like it might just be prudent to end our excursion at the vineyard later to taste some local wine.

So after a light lunch we all waited at the trolley stop for the trolley that did not come. Thirty minutes later, it dawned on us that just maybe the trolley didn't run on Sundays. A quick call to an area hotel (which had a trolley stop marked on our map) confirmed that to be the case.

Plan B: visit the vines. The wine (made exclusively from the grapes grown here) is named Dog and Oyster, presumably because they have watch dogs among the vines to keep the deer away, and because they also serve delicious steamed oysters. We all sampled the five wines available and then ordered a chilled bottle of one of their whites called Pearl to share. Tom ordered oysters which only he and I ate since Denise is allergic to shellfish. Attitudes were adjusted quickly and it didn't seem nearly so oppressively hot as before. Laughter abounded. Seemed as if that wine was quite special and so several more bottles were purchased to take with us for later!

Back at the boat, we were just about ready to sit down to dinner on Kentris when a thunderstorm rumbled in. Lots of rain but not much wind so all was well (and cooler too).

We have become Farkle addicts and now have our very own set after receiving “the prize” given to the first round winner last night. Thanks to our buddy boat for thinking of such things.

July 21, 2013

Irvington, Virginia

Kentris went back in the water ("went over" in local terms, or "splashed") uneventfully on Friday morning bright and early. What a relief it was to be out of the boat yard. After taking on fuel, we sailed to Fishing Bay, near Deltaville, VA where we met up with our friends from the Rat Club on their boat Polaris.

Polaris on the hook

The heat was still oppressive but at least there was a good breeze to keep things manageable. That breeze became an annoying chop though later that night when we were trying to sleep and the boat was bobbing up and down relentlessly. I guess good things always come at a price, right?

Saturday morning we left that anchorage with only a reefed main sail. The wind was 15-20 with gusts a little higher, but we were thinking it would be higher in the Bay itself. That didn't develop and we had a fairly comfortable sail north to the Rappahanock River. There we encountered a heavy current against us and wind 18-22k almost directly on the nose. After making very little headway for several hours, we finally got out of the current, shook out the reef and pulled out the genoa to race a monohull for the last several miles, making over 7 knots. Nothing like a little competition to liven things up.

Near Irvington, VA

We are now anchored in Carter Creek at the town of Irvington, VA. It's cloudy (!) and we are hoping for it to stay that way so it won't be so hot. We are planning a trip into town this afternoon to locate internet (and air conditioning so I won't drown the computer while typing) and take a trolley ride to some surrounding towns. We didn't bring our wifi antenna with us this trip so we are limited in getting on line. Haven't been able to connect to any unsecured sites from the boat like we have in the past.

Quote of the day from the local coffee shop:

"You can't have everything.  

Where would you put it all?"

Here's a picture of our boat in the slings just coming out of the water yesterday.

We're ready now to start painting.

July 16, 2013

Yesterday the Kentris was squeezed into a travel lift that was barely large enough to hold her, lifted out of the water by two very large (and hopefully strong) straps, power washed while in the slings, and then moved to her position in the boat yard and left to stand on her keels in the hot sun. She is not very happy here, out of her element. But it is a necessary evil in order to restore her undersides close to their former pristine beauty.

Tom started early this morning sanding all the rough spots and removing the barnacle “glue” remaining after the power washing had removed the barnacles and slime. It has taken multiple hours with him dressed in protective clothing and respirator. I think he has taken four showers so far today. Oh, did I forget to mention that it is 95 degrees out there? And very high humidity as well. Yes, it is pretty darn uncomfortable and we can't run the AC because that system uses the water that we are not in right now.

The little marina that we are using has none of the luxuries you might find in larger, better known facilities, such as an air conditioned lounge, internet, pool, restaurant, etc. It's a waterman's marina with few pleasure craft, mostly crabbers and fishermen. But it has a large enough lift for us (which can be hard to find) and the price is right. This whole process is not cheap so if we can safely save a few bucks, we will. And we are located in the great sailing area of the southern Chesapeake Bay, so when we get back in the water, we'll spend some time sailing with friends who are currently off somewhere on their boat, having a good time while waiting for us to get this job done.  It looks as if it will be Friday before we they can "splash" us.  Have to wait on new parts.

Some other friends have loaned us a car to use while we are here. They are due to bring it this evening, so tonight we are going to find an air conditioned restaurant and sit there for hours and hours! It is way too hot to cook much on the boat. One of the men who works here has brought us multiple tomatoes, 2 eggplants, some peppers, and some basil from his garden. How wonderful is that? In the morning, before it gets too hot, I plan to make a vegetable concoction of some sort that we can just warm up for dinner tomorrow.

No pictures today.  Sitting outside a Starbucks to use their internet and didn't bring the camera with me.

Hey folks,

So here I am back on the blog site.  It has been a long while since we did anything interesting enough on the boat to think about writing it down for others to read.  Remodeling a house, moving x2, life just gets in the way.  Anyway, for what it's worth, here's the story so far.
               

The trip up the ICW has been fairly uneventful. We dodged thunderstorms every afternoon, and luckily had  only had a few sprinkles of rain from them until we hit Norfolk (more about that later). We got our refrigerator running again after fiddling with the wiring, but cannot get the solar controller working so have to charge batteries with the engines. Since we have mostly been motor sailing, that has not been a problem.

We anchored the first night just south of the Alligator River bridge where we thought to find some calmer water. It was a bit rolly, however, so we were glad to get up and out of there in the morning. We'll chose a different location next time if there's a SW wind.

ICW canal

The Albemarle Sound was a bit rowdy. No surprise there. But we were able to turn off the engines after that crossing and sail up the North River. Nice wind and calm water. Anchored in Blackwater Creek, a quiet little stream surrounded by marsh grass. Calm night except for the skeeters.

The next day we stopped for fuel at Coinjock and started through the many bridges and one lock between there and Hampton Roads.  We were actually able to coordinate the bridge openings well and only had to wait a while for a railroad bridge to open back up after a train passed. 

Great Bridge Lock

There were heavy clouds all day but no rain.  But as we were navigating the area around Portsmouth/Norfolk, we were hit with 2 blinding deluges.  If you have never been on that particular stretch of water, you need to know that there are very large barges and naval ships that regularly pass through there.  There is also strict security surrounding the military ships docked on both sides of the river, so you can't get too close and blow them up, I suppose.  Anyway, it can be difficult to find a place to tuck into to wait out the weather.  And you can't anchor very easily either in 50 feet or more of water.  So we pointed into the wind a little out of the main channel, turned on our navigation lights so we could maybe be seen, and hoped for the best.  It seemed like forever but the rain did eventually abate and we were able to move on to anchor in Willoughby Bay just before entering the Chesapeake.

Willoughby Bay is a large, relatively protected bay surrounded by Norfolk Naval Base and the highway that enters the tunnel to Hampton, VA. It would have been a great anchorage except that helicopters flew over and around the boat all evening and even after dark for a while. Some might say a small price to pay to be settled and no longer dealing with the weather.

Friday morning we woke up to drizzle and gloomy skies.  We couldn't decide if we wanted to head up the Chesapeake as planned or wait until the weather improved.  Finally, after checking the weather reports and radar several times, we felt like the worst storms were over.  So we sailed the 30 or so miles up to Severn River, once again dodging showers on a few occasions.  We are currently anchored off Severn River Marina with our friends Dennis and Denise "next door".  We had another (and hopefully the last for a while) deluge last night just after returning from a potluck dinner on shore.  Had about 5 inches of rain to bail out of the dinghy this morning but it needed a good cleaning anyway.  Today we're doing nothing much but relaxing.  Planning to get the boat hauled Monday afternoon and then do some sailing around the Chesapeake.