Fishing Bay Deltaville VA USA

Nursing the MPS along in light winds

The weather forecast remained troublesome; too little wind followed by too much wind and lots of rain. Factoring in that Alison also needed to be back at her car in Deltaville by lunchtime on Sunday, which was when the wind was forecast to be strongest and the rain heaviest, Jamie went for the least stressful option of everyone moving to Fishing Bay on the Saturday and just relaxing there.

Anna Lee and Twin Cove motoring past us

Once we were out in the bay there was just enough wind to fly our MPS so we hoisted that to add a bit of colour to the morning.  But that was relatively short-lived and an hour and a quarter later we had to admit defeat and revert to engine power.

For the hour that we ran the engine we set a variety of different power settings and experienced little or no vibration on the Aquadrive unit.  Clearly adding a little bit more grease had been beneficial [Ed: the instructions caution about adding too much grease, hence we’d built up the level in stages] which we guessed was predictable as we had just ordered a new one to be manufactured for us.

Once in Fishing Bay we rejoined the rest of the small flotilla.  After setting our anchor and reporting our arrival with CBP (Customs and Border Protection) we met up with the rest of the team on board Twin Cove for a lazy afternoon on the top deck, listening to the University of Virginia’s football team play an away match.  The view from the top deck is excellent and to laze on board a lovely motor yacht in the early evening sunshine is, quite frankly, the height of decadence.

Enjoying Twin Cove’s top deck

The theme of good company and good food continued throughout the afternoon and evening and into the next day.   Alison, Doug and Jamie produced even more pre-dinner nibbles.  Dinner on Saturday was cooked by George & Frances and then on Sunday it was our turn.  We pre-cooked dinner on board BV whilst the wind blew itself out and the rain poured down and then joined everyone later afternoon.  Sadly, however, without Alison because she had had to return home for work.  By mid-afternoon the weather had perked up considerably and we were joined for afternoon drinks and oysters, this time cooked in garlic butter, by Rick Farinholt, who runs Stingray Point Boatyard and who was out sailing a daykeelboat in the last of the autumnal sun.  And so a weekend of over-eating, gentle sailing and lots of fun with friends ended with our stroganoff followed by even more of Frances' excellent cake.

Monday began with boat admin: filling up with diesel, water and petrol, and pumping out the holding tanks.  We also collected from the boatyard the parcel containing my camera which had been delivered whilst we were in Matthews.  Twin Cove joined us on the fuel dock to drop off Bill and Lydia, so it was an emotional goodbye to everyone and to Deltaville for this year.  We needed to start the journey south but the first leg was not going to be a long one as we had arranged to pop the short distance back to the Mathews area to visit Chris and Bill Burry to talk computerized charting with them.

Fishing Bay, Deltaville, Virginia, USA