Well, I don’t know about the shoppers but I can’t remember offhand a Friday more the antithesis of the term than this one. I started off dark enough though. I was awake way too early, excited about starting cruising and traveling again after six weeks of visiting with the boat serving primarily as transportation from one group of friends to the next.
I’m not complaining. This has been one of the most enjoyable periods of the odyssey covered by this forum. The perfect cap for it was being invited to Buck420’s three generation mega Thanksgiving with nine grandchildren (oldest seven). It was their first all hands turkey day get together and being treated like one of the family was one of the more special things that has happened to me since I started this largely solitary life. Still, the essence of cruising is change and I am ready to start making some southing.
It was a bit of an adventure getting across Hampton Roads to Little Creek the day before. It was rough. I still had the dinghy on the foredeck where I had put it for security during my road trip to Ohio and my first time underway with it up there. The cabin heater is always surges fitfully in rough water as the float valve that regulates the fuel bounces around but it has never caused a problem worse than smoking up the glass on the door.
I was picking my way through a mess of crab pots in some nasty tidal chop set up by a fetch the full length of the bay when I looked down and saw the heater filled with flame. I shot below just in time for it to make a huge “Whoof” that blew it out. Smoke started pouring out the bottom and draft flap. I switched on the fan and ran back up to advise the autopilot on missing the next buoy. They were hard to see in the waves and I stood helplessly watching the cabin fill up with dense smoke. I can’t run the heater in strong winds with the dinghy on deck because it disrupts the draft. The boat smelled like a bus station for a few hours but it was fine by the next day.
So, this morning, I was up pacing around the boat like an old maid that wants something (thanks to Billy Atkin for that line) trying to decide when it would be light enough that I would be able to see the crab pots around the edge of Willoughby Bank. Impatience had me sliding by our sleeping navy in darkness worthy of the post title but I did time it right and could just pick out the first crab pot I came across. At least, I think it was the first one.
The run up the Elizabeth River is right up there with the New York passage in my mind for an impressive display of the scale and might of our civilization. I waved to one of my research vessels that I caught a brief glimpse of at the NOAA dock and continued up to the turn into the Dismal Swamp route.
The section up to Deep Creek Lock was filed with fishermen. I don’t know what they were fishing for but there must be some species that is best caught in the center of the deepest part of the channel. Does anyone know what it is? I thought most fish liked the shallows and snags along the sides.
I missed the 11:00 opening so I anchored, turned off the radio, and was just getting settled for lunch and a bit of a nap to await the 1:30 opening when I heard a horn and looked up to see the lock gates opening. No one had showed up for the 11:00 opening, so Robert, the lock keeper who regaled Lee and Lynn and I for over an hour with a presentation on the whole history of the canal and the area last year, decided he could use the water allotment to let me through so I would have time to make the visitors center by dark.
Once I was in the lock, he told me about all the stores just a short walk from the dock past the bridge. Then he said, “Say, just leave the boat in the lock and I’ll drive you up. Tying up alone is difficult and I can’t open again till 1:30 anyway.” All I needed was ice but, after donning a lifejacket for the walk across to the car so as to be in full compliance with all applicable Army Corp of Engineers regulations, we drove up to the store for ice before he opened the gate and bridge and I continued on my way.
It was a perfect day for the run through the swamp. I reached the visitors center a little over three hours later and tied up for the night after a 47 nm day. There won’t be any days that long again for a while unless I am simply enjoying myself too much to stop. It’s time to start cruising.
I’m not complaining. This has been one of the most enjoyable periods of the odyssey covered by this forum. The perfect cap for it was being invited to Buck420’s three generation mega Thanksgiving with nine grandchildren (oldest seven). It was their first all hands turkey day get together and being treated like one of the family was one of the more special things that has happened to me since I started this largely solitary life. Still, the essence of cruising is change and I am ready to start making some southing.
It was a bit of an adventure getting across Hampton Roads to Little Creek the day before. It was rough. I still had the dinghy on the foredeck where I had put it for security during my road trip to Ohio and my first time underway with it up there. The cabin heater is always surges fitfully in rough water as the float valve that regulates the fuel bounces around but it has never caused a problem worse than smoking up the glass on the door.
I was picking my way through a mess of crab pots in some nasty tidal chop set up by a fetch the full length of the bay when I looked down and saw the heater filled with flame. I shot below just in time for it to make a huge “Whoof” that blew it out. Smoke started pouring out the bottom and draft flap. I switched on the fan and ran back up to advise the autopilot on missing the next buoy. They were hard to see in the waves and I stood helplessly watching the cabin fill up with dense smoke. I can’t run the heater in strong winds with the dinghy on deck because it disrupts the draft. The boat smelled like a bus station for a few hours but it was fine by the next day.
So, this morning, I was up pacing around the boat like an old maid that wants something (thanks to Billy Atkin for that line) trying to decide when it would be light enough that I would be able to see the crab pots around the edge of Willoughby Bank. Impatience had me sliding by our sleeping navy in darkness worthy of the post title but I did time it right and could just pick out the first crab pot I came across. At least, I think it was the first one.
The run up the Elizabeth River is right up there with the New York passage in my mind for an impressive display of the scale and might of our civilization. I waved to one of my research vessels that I caught a brief glimpse of at the NOAA dock and continued up to the turn into the Dismal Swamp route.
The section up to Deep Creek Lock was filed with fishermen. I don’t know what they were fishing for but there must be some species that is best caught in the center of the deepest part of the channel. Does anyone know what it is? I thought most fish liked the shallows and snags along the sides.
I missed the 11:00 opening so I anchored, turned off the radio, and was just getting settled for lunch and a bit of a nap to await the 1:30 opening when I heard a horn and looked up to see the lock gates opening. No one had showed up for the 11:00 opening, so Robert, the lock keeper who regaled Lee and Lynn and I for over an hour with a presentation on the whole history of the canal and the area last year, decided he could use the water allotment to let me through so I would have time to make the visitors center by dark.
Once I was in the lock, he told me about all the stores just a short walk from the dock past the bridge. Then he said, “Say, just leave the boat in the lock and I’ll drive you up. Tying up alone is difficult and I can’t open again till 1:30 anyway.” All I needed was ice but, after donning a lifejacket for the walk across to the car so as to be in full compliance with all applicable Army Corp of Engineers regulations, we drove up to the store for ice before he opened the gate and bridge and I continued on my way.
It was a perfect day for the run through the swamp. I reached the visitors center a little over three hours later and tied up for the night after a 47 nm day. There won’t be any days that long again for a while unless I am simply enjoying myself too much to stop. It’s time to start cruising.