Tuesday 10/7/08We stayed put at Ocean Marine to allow the windy / rough weather to clear and also we just felt like we needed a rest day. It sounds strange to say we needed a rest from riding in a boat for four days, but we both were just getting rid of cold symptoms plus, there is a certain amount of anxiety induced stress connected with cruising on the water. Weather monitoring and decision making about length of passages, and best secure places to stop for the night. Also there are the boat systems to monitor and maintain – battery charging, engine operation and fuel filter checks, water remaining in the supply tank as well as the normal things like planning what to eat, preparing it and clean-up chores. All of these things take a bit more thought when you are on a boat – even storage of trash. Anyway, we just were ready to hang out for a day.
Ocean Marine is a major yacht service and repair facility. They may be the only yard on the Chesapeake that can haul-out a 150’ mega yacht and put it into their paint shop. Yesterday, after we were fueled and in our slip, an 85’ yacht came in and was at the fuel dock (where we had pumped 155 gal. in about 15-20 minutes) and was there for about 2 ½ hours with the fuel hose on board. We have been having an intermittent problem with the GPS / chart plotter on our bridge. It would display an error message indicating a loss of data. We had pretty much determined the cable connection was faulty, so we thought we would have an Ocean Marine electronics guy look at it and replace the plug. Bill showed up at 08:30 AM as promised and a half hour later he had cleaned the plug’s contacts and re-connected the cable. Hopefully that will be the end of the trouble.
After doing some interior and exterior cleaning on FLIGHT, we decided to catch the ferry across the river to Norfolk and walk to a new food store we were told about. Farm Fresh, an up-scale food store sort of like Wegman’s, was a short walk from the waterfront so we replenished our supply of perishable things like bread, salad greens and apples, etc. Somehow those few ordinary things filled out the day and we went to bed early (again) after pasta and meat balls aboard. Who knows how many ships might have passed in the night as we slept.
2 comments:
If you want to SAVE $$$$, you can move back to the SOUTH FERRY basin, where you take the ferry from Portsmouth to Watersides and tie up FOR FREE. It is posted as NO overnight docking, but they do not enforce it. We spent 4 nights there along the steps down from the street side tie, very nice. On the weekend you will see these ferry basins fill up and spend the night. The sign is there only so they can move out trashed boats. Nice boats with people who spend $$$ in town may stay for FREE. It is the best deal in town. Tie up right next to the coffee booth and get a hot coffee every AM. Perfect.
Thanks for the input. When we were in Portsmouth the water was so rough that boats in the FREE tie up were bouncing like I've NEVER seen boats bounce. I've also seen it when it was perfectly calm. Will remember it for our trip back.
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