Portsmouth, VA

Arrived in Portsmouth, VA, across the river from Norfolk, VA.  Had a long 8.5 hour trip down the Chesapeake from Deltaville.  Left at 7 am, got here at 4:30 pm. 

We are at the High Street Dock, which is free.  However, there is no power, water, showers, etc.  It is
exactly like the East 9th St basin next to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame building. We can stay here for a couple of nights if we want to and if our batteries hold up. 

There is a big storm coming on Wed and so we will not be heading down the Dismal Swamp until Thursday.

The pictures today are of ships in what is called the Hampton Roads Harbor,  it covers Hampton, Newport New, Norfolk and Portsmouth.

Tomorrow Joy is going out campaigning for President Obama.  I will probably take the water taxi across the river to see an afternoon movie.

We thought about moving across the river to Waterside Marina but that is $60 /night vs staying her for free until they kick us out.

There is a lot of ship repair work going on around here.  In fact there is a new Navy ship being built right across from where we are staying. Will try and find out what kind it is.


Joe

In Virginia

Last night we arrived in Deltaville, VA after a long 50 plus mile trip from Solomons Island, MD.

Left about 8 am and got to Deltaville Marina around 4:30 pm.  Long day of sailing mostly.  Started off kind of small waves but crossing the Potomac River the waves kicked up to about 3 to 4 feet and were hitting the beam so there was a lot of rolling sideways.  In fact the Honda generator fell over on its side. 

The night before we spent having dinner with Linda and Francis Miko, our boating buddies from our first trip down the ICW.  They are off their boat for a while and back to work.  See pictures below

They live near Herrington North Marina in Deale, MD where we are thinking of keeping
High Spirits next summer while we are up in New London, NH enjoying warm .
 summer winds.

Today is a relax day here in Deltaville, doing a little boat work and using the free car to go to the store for a few items.

Then tomorrow it is down to Hospital Point in Norfolk and then two days down the ICW to Elizabeth City, NC.

Joe

Back on High Spirits

We are back on High Spirits after a couple of days off the boat and we stayed at
Jen's place in Hyattsville. The boat rode all the storm with no problems.  We had a nice  rental car from Enterprise, a Chevy Spark.  Cute and small, but fine for two people and also cheap.

Took a lot of picture at Jen's.  The tree picture is of the tree that fell against their house during Hurricane Sandy, but did not cause their power to go out. It fell and is supported at the top of the tree against the house and the wire just kind of slide in between the branches.  Jen called Pepco, the local power company. They will come and take the tree away, as their responsibility is to make sure the power lines are not damaged or knocked down.  The tree actually belongs to the house next door which has been bought by a house flipper.

Adam is 2 and a half, Erin is 5 and a half, Joy is   TOP SECRET

The next door neighbor's tree against the house.  The was a small amount of water that leaked in on the back porch, but not into the house proper.

Playing a game in the living room.

Erin decided to be a princess for the parade at school today.

Adam decided to be a dinosaur for Halloween.


Joe

Hurricane Sandy

Well we are all prepped for Hurricane Sandy.  Stripped the top of the boat off of anything that could catch the wind and cause trouble.   We took off  the Bimini and dodger, plus the jib sail plus all he bumpers.  Try to take a picture before we leave tomorrow for Jen's house in Hyattsvlle.

This kind of reminds me of Hurricane Irene last Fall, had to do the same preparations and ended up at Mark's and Mimi's house in Holliston, MA for a couple of days. No damage to High Spirits then, and hopefully no damage next week.


Going to be there until Wednesday.  More blog later.


Joe

UPDATE  SATURDAY OCT 27 2012

Well it is Sat morning, and we have a couple of more items to take off the deck. Going to take down the anchors and the life ring.  Also going to take off the folddown table and sweep under the cockpit lattice floor so that nothing clogs up the drain hosesin case we get a lot of rain.

Here are two pictures of the deck after yesterday.

More Repairs

This morning was spent watching DJ from Zahniser's Marine Center finally get a handle on the front head sump pump.  Steve Farnko - here is what he found. The grounding strips back at the circuit panel were corroded enough to drop the voltage down so that the pump drew too much amperage and shorted itself out.

The fix was to take apart the circuit breaker panel, get back in and clean the grounding strip so the connections are working properly and they front head pump gets the correct 13 volts.  OF course, the old pump was toast.  Fortunately, in our spare parts inventory, we were carrying a pump and just had to wire it in. Now I can empty out the shower tray with the pump instead of with a manual bilge pump.

DJ's next job is to climb up the mast and try to figure out why our forward steaming light is not working.  We have voltage at the deck. Hopefully just a burned out bulb and not the receptacle.

Befoe we got here we spent a few days at Herrington North marina in Deale, MD.  Really nice place to visit. Joy worked on the pump for the aft head.  Took it all apart and used one of our pump repair kits. So we are back to having a two head boat.

Also going to have DJ look at our remote microphone to see if its problem is the mic or the port on the back of the radio, his thought is that it is the port.  Our remote mic receives but does not transmit.

Joe

Deale, MD

Tonight finds us in Deale, MD at Herrington North Marina.  Deale is a very small town south of Annapolis, on the way to Solomon Island where we plan on meeting Jen, Mark, Adam and Erin this upcoming weekend. Hopefully the weather will cooperate for an afternoon sailing trip. Right now Sat looks better than Sunday.

Plus we plan on having Erin stay on the boat with us for another overnight with Nani and Buppa, that are or names from Erin and Adam.

We had a nice sail down yesterday with Dave and Peg Shaake, they are a wonderful couple we met on or sailing adventure in the Bahamas and other places with them.  They are on the land for some family reasons, but hope to get back on the water with their new boat, Wanderin Star. New to them, an older Island Packet 38 which has been over to the Azores with a previous owner.

On the way down, we cut through a Naval Academy sailing race. It looks like they were racing 30 footers, here is a picture of Navy Blue and Gold Spinnakers.

Plus another picture of Adam.

We will hole up here for another day to work on the back head pump problem. It certainly is nice to have two heads when one breaks down.


Joe

Sailing with Erin and Adam

Jen and family finally arrived around 1 pm or so.  They took the Water Taxi, only cost $2 per person. Not bad unless you travel back and forth a couple of times in a day.  But it beats taking the dinghy in and having it ripped off.

We did take our dinghy in with Erin this morning.  A nice peaceful ride.

Then in the afternoon we went out for a sail/motor boa ride. Adam likes speed so he was very excited about seeing the power boats blast past us.  Especially when we almost at a standstill due to lack of wind a times.

So here are some pictures from today's adventure.

 

Adam at the helm with Mark

 

 

Erin and Mark. Think Erin is eating one of the fresh baked muffins from Friday.

The four of them in one picture frame.

 

 

Adam at the restaurant tonight.  He loves cheeseburgers!

 

Erin- age 5 years , 9 months