Virgina is for Covers

After 15 days of hard running, long days, we reached Atlantic Yacht Basin (AYB) in Chesapeake Virginia, just south of Norfolk, where the boat will be stored under cover for the next 8 months.  This is the same place we left the boat last year for the majority of storm season.

From the last post, we were in Stuart, Florida, and expecting to take 3 weeks to get the boat to AYB.  Having Tristan along has really helped as we have been able to put in long days.  Generally up before dawn and away with first good light, and docked around 6.  As we worked our way north, and being past Spring equinox, the days progressively got longer and we lengthened the days so that we were regularly putting in 10 to 12 hour days.  That enabled us to log close to 80 nautical miles days pretty regularly.  Total mileage for the trip from Sarasota was 1,071 nautical miles (1,983 km) for an average daily run of 75 miles. That may not sound like an outstanding average speed, but considering bridge opening delays, slow zones for residential areas, and manatee slow zones, it is very good daily progress.

Our stops since Stuart included Melbourne, Daytona Beach, and Palm Cove, all in Florida,  Wolf Island Park (GA) at anchor, Hilton Head, Church Creek at anchor, and Georgetown in SC, Southport, Swansboro, Oriental, Alligator River, all in NC, before reaching Chesapeake in VA.

We ran in the ocean two half days, between Florida and Georgia, and again from Wolf Island, to shorten the time spent in the winding channels of Georgia.  This enabled us to go thru GA in 28 hours, including 13 of which were at anchor. 

We did pass by the MV Golden Ray again, in St Simons Sound, at the entrance to Brunswick, which rolled over last September, and we saw on the way south last fall.  We got a good view of the progress to prepare for cutting the ship up in place to remove the wreck. 

Fortunately the weather was generally good for the trip, with temps in the 80's and light winds in Florida and SC,  but a definite cooling as we moved into NC, and increase in winds.  The legs from Swansboro and Oriental require traversing fairly large bodies of water including the Neuse River, Pamlico Sound, and the entrance to Alligator River which yielded a lot of salt spray as we worked our way into strong north winds. 

Those days we spent pretty much all day, except for a brief period in the afternoon, steering from the inside steering station, in warm, dry and comfortable conditions. One day, while near an ocean entrance, we cast a message in a bottle into the river on an ebb tide, hoping it would carry out to the Gulf stream and take it to Europe somewhere. 

Our last day was warm and dry though and we were into AYB early enough to give the boat a good wash to get rid of the salt before we started our two days of decommissioning work. 

Not too many notable events to report on for the trip as we weren't able to enjoy any of the stops.  Not only were we on a mission to get the boat north, but most everything was closed anyway from the time we left Stuart as the Covid crisis increased.

We did have a few interesting sights though.  More engagements with dolphins of course, with one day in Florida having 12 surfing in our bow and stern wakes.  That was quite a sight.  And north of Cape Canaveral, we were in position to see another rocket launch, which was a day time event this time. 


















And we did have a major mechanical malfunction to deal with.  We broke both corkscrews about 10 days in, and had to improvise with pliers, screwdriver as a fulcrum, and the useful screw section to remove the corks.

After 2 days of decommissioning work, including engine oil changes, bimini disassembly, bike storage, protective canvas install, and general cleanup, Rumaway is prepared to go into covered storage for the summer/fall.  Due to the current issues, the winter storage clients are late in removing their boats, so she has to sit outside for a while until a covered storage site comes available.  

So there is a double entendre to the post title.  The slogan on the licence plates here is "Virginia is for Lovers" and we are expecting to leave the boat under cover again here for 6 months.  Hence the "Virginia is for covers.

In late March we were sufficiently confident of our progress to book flights home for April 8th.  The trip home went well, although with eerily quiet airports.  The flight from Norfolk to Dallas had 15 people, and the flight from Dallas to Vancouver had 8 people.  Certainly no issue staying distanced from others. 

Our preparations to store the boat were done with the possible risk that we may not be back to her in the fall. This isn't a base case expectation, but realistically no one knows how long this issue may last and we therefore did whatever we could to leave her for an extended period. Hopefully this isnt the case, and you can look forward to another blog post in late November.  

Hope you are all well and have a safe spring and summer.