Virginia Is For Lovers, and Internet

We left St Jeromes Creek in a thick fog. We had to use the Garmin to get us out. The Fog continued into the Bay and at one point we thought we heard a fog horn.  We hoped up and started searching the coast but visibility was maybe a half mile.  We almost gave up when we saw this large barge push through the fog at us. We had plenty of time to get out the way but it was still kinda scary.  We honked our fog horn back at it and continued our trip very aware!



In order to keep the wind and spray off of us we tied up these "Dexter" sheets. They limit our visibility some but are well worth it. We both agree is warmer at the helm than sitting in the cockpit because of the wind difference.

We use Skippers Bob ICW Anchorages and it is well worth the $17. They show us all the good anchorages along the ICW and where the free docks are! Coming into Jackson Creek was tricky because of the surrounding shoals. Look how close we are to this house. But it was well worth it to have a free dock!



Nala loves free docks too. Well she loves to just get off the boat whenever possible.





Sunday was rainy and much colder than Saturday. We had to hang our wet clothes to dry, staying dry is key.







We walked into town in Deltasville but it was 5pm on a Sunday so everything was closed. We found some outlets at this harware store to charge our laptops and had a mini dance party. The road into town was called Lovers Lane :)




 
Pretty boat lights at our free dock in Deltasville.



 
We had to get up at 6am and be on our way at 6:45 Monday to make it to Portsmouth, VA by 4:45





Cooking Bacon and Eggs. Christine had become quite the chef on board, even though I limit her electric use.  We bought fresh food before we left so we should be eating good this first week!






Monday we got into the roughest part of the Chesapeake Bay, the mouth!  The waves were very high, I dont really know how to measure wave hight, but our boat was getting tossed back and forth.  We wern't really prepared for all the tossing and soon we heard crashing down below.  By the time we got into the Norfolk chanel EVERYTHING was on our cabin floor.  Luckily nothing vital broke, just an ornament we had bought in Jamaica :(
 
 


This is how the off shift person stayed warm.  The main thing we were worried about was our toes.  The blanket shift person would take off their shoes and rub hand warmers on them.  Thanks to everyone who gave us hand warmers because they are crucial!

Cool Battleships at the Norfolk Naval Base



 
 

 We passed Norfolk and used Skippers Bobs advice again to land in Portsmouth across the river. In Portsmouth we got another Free Dock! Its meant as a 2 hour dock but it's January, we are one of two boats there and Skipper Bob says its unenforced.

Here is our view from our free dock, Norfolk at Night

After the long ten hour day of getting bashed by waves we walked into Portsmouth and found a Chinese Buffet.  We had plenty of food on board but thought we deserved it. So we indulged!

Today, Tuesday Jan 4th, we found a coffee shop with free wifi and to plug in our laptops. We are now at mile marker 0 of the ICW and will enter the Dismal Swamp!  We probably wont have internet till Friday when we hit Oriental, NC.  

On that note: Happy Birthday this week to Grammy, Paige and Jarret!!! 

We Are Cruisers At Last!

We celebrated the New Year with a bottle of Verde and stayed up just long enough to kiss at midnight. We had to get our rest because we were up at 6am on January 1st 2011 ready to start the new year!

We were getting things ready up to the last minute before we left. Even making a last minute coffee run. But the hardest part of this last prep weekend was saying bye to our family. We are both very close with our family and they will easily be what we miss the most about our previous land life.

But our adventure could not wait any longer and soon we were motoring out of the Herring Bay for the last time around 8am. We got some “I miss you” and “are you still ok” calls and had to remind our family that our sailboat moves very slow and that we won’t even be leaving Maryland today. We could literally still meet for dinner if we were so inclined.



Overall it was a good first day, emotional but good. The temperature touched 50 and we had plenty of layers on to stay warm. We got to use our autopilot for the first time which was awesome. Since there were no crab pots or boats anywhere to be seen, it made the helmsmen shift the easier of the two shifts. While at the helm Christine was able to read her Nook and I could play on my Nintendo DS. Every minute or so we look up and see continued empty bay. Easy breezy.

About 2 hours before our anchorage the conditions got worse and it looked like rain so we threw on our foul weather gear. I thought I was gonna pass out from heat exhaustion from wearing so many layers. It got a little nerve racking wondering if we were gonna get caught anchoring in the rain. Plus our anchorage had a tight and shallow entrance, St Jeromes Creek. But luckily the rain held off and after much debate we decided to take our chances going through the channel. We went very slow and soon felt the mud dragging along our keel. So we backed out the way we came and just took a nice open (unprotected) anchorage outside the creek. We made good time and were anchored by 4pm with some daylight to spare. One of our goals is to not anchor at night. After that time we almost ran into a barge, new areas at night are terrifying.

We quickly got into bed to read and plan more of the route. I procrastinated this too much and am only about 3-4 days ahead of ourselves.



From now on our blog posts will come when we find internet service. Hopefully The Wirie will make itself worth the price but the first night it found no open connections.

Next Stop Jackson Creek Deltasville, VA

Well, We're leaving in the AM

This has been a hectic week. We knew it would be, but it's still just amazing how much you can get done in a short time when under pressure. Also a huge thanks to our families who have been SOOO helpful throughout all this and we wouldn't have gotten it all done without them. Thank you Tina and Trish (both moms) for juggling our cars. Thank you Dana for Christmas leftovers that lasted ALL WEEK!! We just finished them last night!! So helpful! Thank you Karen, Chet, Paul and Grammy for cold weather supplies!!! Thank you blog readers for advice and support! Thank you everyone else we may not have mentioned!!

Here are some things we bought on our latest provisioning adventure. [Super WalMart for life!!!!]

A Taste of Home 

Year Supply of Gummy Bears for Joey

Year Supply of Texas Pete for Christine

Pretty Christmas Present from Christine's Mom 

Pretty Christmas Present from Joey's Mom (Great Mom's think alike!) 

Mega flashlight from Joey's Mom 

 

-christine

We Can See Our Breath

Well we turned off our last heater so now we are in a whole new world of cold! Its been about 35 on the boat all day so we are trying out our layering strategies. Sleeping is still warm because we have the heated blanket still. When we leave and have to turn off the heated blanket we will probably sleep in sleeping bags with blankets on top.

We got snow and had a pretty white Christmas. We are keeping an eye on the weather to avoid any upcoming blizzards. Ideally we will leave next Sunday at the crack of dawn with dreams of warmer weather.

If these ducks can swim in that cold water for some donuts, then we should survive.

We ran our safety lines across the boat on both sides.  We will stay tethered to these safety lines at all times so we dont get bucked overboard!

The last project was completed. We now have a cockpit fuel guage. Our old fuel gauge was under the couch and a pain to check.

The new gauge is right with our other instruments and will be easy to monitor. It wasnt too hard of an install, just running wire and drilling a new 2 inch hole in the cockpit. I really felt like it was the final test that we are ready. I was able to install it all with tools we already had and when it didn't come on at first I was able to troubleshoot it and find and fix the problem without anyones help. We are ready!

It even glows in the dark.

We hope everyone had a Happy Holiday and enjoyed the snow. We got a much needed spotlight and even more needed "marriage savers" hands free walkie talkies. We will post about them after we use them. Thank you to all our family for your support, both gifts and well wishes!

-Joey

New Design!

 We have made some changes to the design of the blog to hopefully make it more reader-friendly, and we are open to suggestion to other changes you would like to see!

If we don't post again before then, everyone have a Merry Merry Christmas!!