A Weekend Escape

Amazingly the Blog is up to date!  With our enforced extra-long stay on the hard at Chesapeake Boat Works, waiting for our diesel injectors to be sent back to the yard after being refurbished, we turned our attention to clearing the backlog of Blog entries.  If you look back as far as March you will now see new Caribbean Island entries for Dominica and various ports of call all the way up to Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands in early May.  More recently, in June, you will also see entries for the OCC Chesapeake Cruise in Company.

While we were waiting for the engine injectors to be refurbished we had started on a long list of jobs, some of which we had been putting off for some time.  It had taken a bit over a week but Nicky’s varnishing refurb of the galley lockers was complete, so we rebuilt the galley and admired the new-look woodwork. Against the smart, new varnish some other areas of the galley and chart table looked distinctly iffy, so Nicky set to work on those……..

Meanwhile, spurred on by the work I had done in the forward heads when fitting the new deck wash, I removed and replaced all the heads inlet pipework in both the forward and aft heads as well as the drainpipes for both basins.  It was hot, sweaty work in each heads compartment but it was a job worth doing and hopefully the new pipes will last us the next decade or 2.

4^thof July celebrations. Clockwise from front left: Rick (Euphoria, Carla is behind the camera); me and Nicky (BV), Bob and Betsy (yacht name unknown), Ginna and Peter (Take Five) and Neil (Jenny)

In between these jobs, changing the engine gearbox hydraulic fluid, changing the engine oil and filter (again) and carrying out some gelcoat repairs on deck, we also tried to catch up with the blog (we had entries dating back to March to complete).  So it seemed pretty full-on even if we escaped each evening to the poolside area for a barbecue dinner (saves heating up the inside of the hull even more) and a swim.  We considered hiring a car and visiting Jamestown and Williamsburg to partake in the 4^thof July celebrations but Nicky said that she felt a bit ‘bah, humbug’ and couldn’t really face enforced jollification and attending sessions where one could ‘learn to be a 1776 revolutionary militiaman’.  So we kept on at jobs on BV and had an enjoyable 4^thJuly evening with boatyard chums [Ed: yes, more barbecued food!] with the sound, but not the sight, of fireworks from all around – the surrounding trees were too high to see the pyrotechnics.  By the weekend of 6-8 July we had both had our fill of maintenance jobs and, with no sign of the injectors, we gladly took up Bill and Lydia on their kind offer of a weekend escape.

Bottom right:  View across Moran Creek and out to the Rappahannock River from Bill and Lydia’s

The last time we had stayed at Bill and Lydia’s we had been on BV, moored to the dock at the front of the house alongside Dragon Run.  Consequently most of our activity had been centred in and around the dock on the eastern arm of the Corrotoman River.  This visit we had the luxury of an air-conditioned bedroom (far more pleasant than living in the heat of a dark blue hulled boat on the hard) and we spent most of our time in garden and on the dock at the back of the house, opening onto Moran Creek.  But, we also had to watch the football World Cup quarter finals – thrilling stuff!

Even so, there was still work to be done and the theme for 2018 seems to be engines failing to start.  Like BV’s engine, the outboard on Bill and Lydia’s powerboat had decided to come over all precious and not start.  So, between the football matches Bill and I pulled it apart and, assisted by the workshop manual, went through a series of tests on all of the electrical systems associated with the starter motor.  We eventually tracked down the fault to a microswitch on the engine which tells the clever electronics that the gearshift is in neutral, so permitting the starter motor to operate.  Somehow, the throttle cable had come detached from an attachment point and the slight movement that enabled prevented the microswitch from being pressed, indicating the neutral position.  Properly secured back in position and with a separate small water leak also fixed, the engine and the boat were ready to go.

On the Saturday evening we accompanied Bill and Lydia to a dinner with members of the Salty Dawg Sailing Association at the Indian River Yacht and Country Club.  The dinner had been arranged partly as an Association rendezvous but primarily as a farewell meal for those Salty Dawg members who were heading north on the Maine Rally.  Amazingly, Mike and Cate from Kealoha Vand Pam and Tom from Stealin’ Timewere also at the meal.  It was great to meet up with them all particularly since we hadn’t seen Pam and Tom since the CA get-together at Leverick Bay in the BVIs, back in April.  Sadly, for those who were supposed to be moving northwards, Tropical Storm Chris was loitering and building off Cape Hatteras so no-one was planning a swift move down towards the ocean the following day.

The squad shooting just before us

The following day, with Bill having recently joined a local pistol and rifle club, we spent a fun couple of hours clay pigeon (or trap) shooting with him and Lydia.  Neither Nicky nor I could give the other participants much of a run for their money but we had a very enjoyable time relearning some of the basics of shotgun shooting and manged to smash a fair number of clays along the way.

Having cleaned the guns, we took the powerboat out for a spin around the adjoining creeks for Sunday evening sundowners ‘just to prove the engine still starts’.

Lively Lady,in the distance, at anchor off Dragon Run’s dock

Osprey nest in Moran Creek with chicks
nearly grown enough to fly the nest

Happily, the engine started first time and Bill made short work of whizzing us around to Dragon Run’s dock on the other side of the peninsula.  Dragon Run was not on her dock over the weekend, being out on the hard having some work done, but Lydia was keen to meet and chat to the owners of Lively Lady, a ketch that had been at anchor off the dock all weekend, avoiding the weather outside the Bay.

We explored quite a long way up the eastern arm of the Corrotoman River and then headed back to the dock, past an osprey nest with 3 nearly full-grown chicks.  With the speedboat back on its lift, Nicky and I to switched our attention to the evening meal.

Whilst we’d been working on the speedboat and watching the football the previous day, Bill and I had baited their crab pot and had had quite good success, catching half a dozen good-sized blue crabs.  Lydia had steamed them and Nicky and I had picked them, producing enough white meat for 4 decent, and very tasty, starters.  Following that we produced chicken breast stuffed with pesto and cooked with white wine and cherry tomatoes, served with green beans and new potatoes.  And to finish up we had homemade dark chocolate soufflés. An excellent end to a lovely weekend away.

Corrotoman River, VA, USA