Norfolk, VA
To see as much of the world as we can,
Using the smallest carbon footprint we can,
Spending the least amount of money we can,
Making as many friends we can.
Dolphins! And painful weather. But. First. Dolphins!
Running around the deck to look at them made it difficult for us to get the anchor up.
The weather did not cooperate, either.
CA broke out the camera and banged away at trying to capture some images. It's …
We declared today to be a Jammie Play Day.
This means we did more-or-less nothing all day. Indeed, I wore my pajamas all day.
The anchor stayed down in Bryant Bay at 37° 19.5000′N 076° 26.6830′W.
For CA, this means reading and …
We've never been to Mobjack Bay. It's time to correct that. There are four rivers that flow into the bay, and each has a number of well-regarded anchorages. I rolled the four-sided die and picked the Severn River.
The engine went on a 09:00, the anchor was up at …
Sometimes things work out.
Today's weather is NW winds 10-15 kt. We're headed south. This would be great sailing.
Except. We've got to cover 47.5 nautical miles. Unless we can sail at a steady 6 kt, we're looking at arriving after dark. Not a pleasant prospect. While the Piankatank …
Nothing ever works out perfectly. For the most part, we have to settle for good enough. We finally left Herrington Harbour. We topped off the water. Picked up the fenders and docklines, and chugged out into the Bay on the morning of October 13th.
Winds were nearly flat (less than …
Here's our general strategy for getting to Charleston, SC. This has three phases to it. Phase I is to get to Norfolk. Phase II is to get to Beaufort. There are a lot of moving parts.
We'll see if we do none, some, or all of it.
For example, there …
Mr. Lehman's starter has been getting flakier and flakier. We've put up with it for a few years now.
You push the starter button and "Click". Nothing else. Just "Click".
Last time we went anywhere (see "Got off the Dock") there was a sequence of five pushes to get the …
Topping lifts hold up the end of the boom. It's expected to hold the boom up for years and years and years. It's kind of important. And no, I did not make a mess of them. They've always been a mess.
The topping lift keeps the boom up when there's …
The 10+ year old binnacle cover finally collapsed. The zipper teeth finally eroded to a point where they wouldn't actually zip. They zipped open one last time.
CA made a new one.
The color scheme doesn't match anything.
But.
It was cheap …
Sometimes you have to do some work.
Like chase down the Blue Heron ("George") as the sunset and clouds align.
This was almost like work.
Just about every piece of running rigging has a shackle (or a loop) spliced into it.
So. I've been trying to learn to splice loops into double-braided line.
See Home Handicrafts — Splicing for my first few attempts.
Here's the mizzen outhaul: white with green.
I spliced …
Usually, it's the other. This is how one repair tends to expand into more than one.
Haul out means some slopping around in the slings as they lift Red Ranger up and whisk her away. It also means that she's often blocked with the bottom of the keel level, which …
I'm slowly getting the hang of some of the rigging jobs.
Here's my version of a "Shackle Splice". It's a Crown Knot and then the tails are buried under four turns of the line.
The splice is (clearly) bigger than the line. It's bigger than the …
Here's everything we own in the world: boat and truck. It's so rare to see it so close together.
(Okay, there's a mattress and a few boxes of things at Diane's. Except for stray bits of junk, like the camera I'm holding, this is it.)
I can do an okay job of whipping. I've tried my hand at seizings. I've woven the anchor chain to the end of the rope rode.
But.
Double-braid splicing?
I'm working on it.
More accurately, I'm struggling with it.
It's not terribly difficult.
But. The …
Read this: https://mariners.coastguard.blog/2020/10/19/performing-a-vhf-marine-radio-check/.
Read this https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/DCO%20Documents/5p/MSIB/2020/MSIB-20-20.pdf.
Print a copy or two, put them in your standard operating procedures.
Also see the Rescue 21 for Boaters list …
See Preseverence. The gas didn't work on cold mornings. Jeri fixed it by wrestling the hose up into the air to slosh around a drop of condensed, cold propane so the gas could flow past it.
Before that, however, the electric sparker on the Force10 hasn't worked for a while …
Finally.
Dan from WRSC offered to help with our preparations. Instead, we decided to go sailing.
It was gusting into the 20's and a bit sporty out in the bay.
CA took a glorious sunset picture from C dock.
There weren't too many boats to see, but, it would …
The point of a sailboat is a way to be mobile.
That means we don't own much.
Here's what was in our apartment the morning we left Virginia:
An Ikea Poäng chair, a cart, a computer, and some luggage.
The chair had to be given away …
We have a primary chart plotter on Red Ranger. And we have backups. A lot of backups. A second chart plotter, an iPad, a MacBook pro. I even have iNavX on my phone, so it can work under limited circumstances. (I don't have all of the US East Coast charts …
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