It always happens. You pull into a boatyard for repairs/upgrades and they tell you a week. Guaranteed it will take two. If they say two weeks it will take four. So our one week stay in Deltaville became two. The good news is that we have beautiful new helm chairs on the fly bridge (testing them out as I write this), reconnected with friends from last year and met new friends. That’s what happens at boatyards. Everyone is checking out the other boats, you get to talking and next thing you know you’re meeting for drinks and dinner. It’s a fun time but it’s always exciting to get back underway.
We are now heading south from Deltaville down the ICW planning to be in Beauford, NC in four days where we will wait for favorable weather for an offshore run to Wilmington.
That was Saturday. We had a suspected problem with our stabilizers that developed into a full scale problem mid day Saturday. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge issue as the boat is extremely stable. However we intend to do much of the run south to Ft Lauderdale offshore and it can get rocky. Since Isabella and I both suffer from sea sickness this is something that needed to be addressed.
So we are currently in Chesapeake VA at Atlantic Yacht Basin. They have a boatyard here staffed with incredibly wonderful people. Today has been dedicated to fixing the port stabilizer and hopefully we will have a happy ending to the day. Meanwhile a hurricane has developed in the Gulf which will send some weather our way so we’re going to sit tight until probably Saturday to continue southward.
The interesting thing about being tied up here is that we get a boat parade at 5 to 10 minutes after every hour. Just north on the ICW is the Great Bridge Lock followed by the Battlefield Blvd Bridge. The bridge only opens for pleasure craft on the hour and the lock schedule is timed to operate in time with the bridge. So everyone has to stop either north of the lock or south of the bridge to travel this little piece of the ICW. We are tied up facing south on the side of the ditch so EVERYTHING has to pass us. Lots of boats heading south and a few heading north that must be lost.
