We are in Virginia!
After a full day of motoring down a calm Chesapeake Bay we arrived in Deltaville and docked at the Deltaville Marina. We put 9.4 hours on the trusty Westerbeke and covered about 60 nautical miles on this run. In order to reach Deltaville before sunset and allowing for a few hours as a safety margin, we left our mooring in Solomon’s about an hour before sunrise. The tidal currents of the Chesapeake Bay run generally north and south and can reach about 1 knot or more in places. Because of the time and distance involved, I knew that we would have currents with us for most of the ride and against us for a few hours too. It all averages out though. For a while we were hitting 7.5 knots and then for a while we were down to 5.25 but we made it in to Deltaville at around 4pm giving us plenty of time to settle in before sunset.
The day’s run was one of the calmest we have experienced since leaving New York but somehow Willow got seasick and vomited in the cockpit… Twice. At least we think she was seasick. We can’t rule out the possibility that she ate something she shouldn’t have back in Solomon’s. She didn’t eat her dinner last night and today she has no interest in eating dog food but was pretty interested in people food. We are giving her the day for her stomach to settle. Hopefully she’ll be back to normal soon.
Upon arrival here in Deltaville, we took on 10 gallons of diesel before getting into our slip and having dinner. 10 gallons is not a lot of fuel to move our home, and everything inside of it 60 miles. But it would have been nicer to sail. Unfortunately the wind was not with us.
It’s nice to be back in Deltaville. Our adventure with Mavis began here in January when we sea-trialed the boat here and after we closed on the sale, we had her hauled out into their boatyard. I spent many nights on the boat here on the hard in the middle of winter while I tackled the 10,000 projects that needed attention before the boat could be launched and sailed home to Long Island. In that time, I got sort of attached to this place. Deltaville is the kind of town where everybody knows everybody. There isn’t much here. Especially in the winter. But in the summer months the population explodes with boats and boaters. In terms of shopping, there’s a 7-11, a grocery store, a fish market, a West Marine, a dollar store, a few restaurants, a gas station, a bunch of marinas, a sailmaker, a coffee shop, other marine services and shops and a liquor store. That’s basically Deltaville. Situated on a peninsula between the Rappahannock and the Piankatank rivers, there is water everywhere.
We plan to stay here for a few days to a week while we wait out Hurricane Michael which is targeting the Florida panhandle right now. After Florida, it looks like it will skip across to the Atlantic Coast and make its way through here and up the coast. I’d rather be cautious and tied to a dock than be out somewhere wishing we were. Plus, we will take a few days to relax and maybe get a few boat projects done. The boat needs constant attention to stay ship-shape. And with all the motoring we have been doing, Mavis is just about due for an oil change. Perhaps I’ll tackle that before we leave here.
We are thinking about sailing over the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay to check out Cape Charles before heading down to Norfolk and entering the ICW. Both of us are looking forward to heading further south than we have been with Mavis in the coming days.
We’ll keep an eye on Michael and will secure the boat as needed for the expected winds. Our floating dock here has finger piers on either side and everything looks very secure. In fact, the dock is brand new. I watched it being built in March and April before we left here. If we need to strip our sails and double up the lines we will. It looks like Michael may still be a strong tropical storm as he moves through here. The current path has the storm passing basically directly over us. It’s always better to be tied to a dock wishing we were “out there” than “out there” wishing we were tied to a dock!
Stay Tuned. Another video coming soon.
Capt. Frank