A good nights sleep was had last night even with a brief period of thunderstorms; or at least says Renee…Erik had no problem sleeping through them apparently. Upon awakening we sat on the aft drinking our cups of joe in the muggy, still air waiting for Deltaville Yachting Center to open at 8am to be able to get confirmation that they would have a spot for us if we headed there today.
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| Dawn at Point Lookout Promises of another blessed day! |
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| As the sun rose the charter captain of ‘Fin Finder II’ greeted a group of 13 Amish boys and men and loaded them all tightly aboard to go out and fish for cobia |
This would be our last main leg of the journey with it being the place we have made arrangements for storage although we will likely plan a couple of small day trips once there over the next 5 days or so. While waiting Erik spent time down in the engine room cleaning things up, checking fluids, and investigating whether we had any type of fuel leak. Yesterday afternoon Craig and another boater (other Marinette owner) had insisted that when they boarded our boat and went below that they smelled fuel (not a good thing on a gasoline powered boat). After a thorough check of the bilge, gas lines, filters, carbs etc he did not find any leak or evidence of fuel. We will keep a close eye (and nose) on it and be particularly diligent to run our bilge blowers prior to startups. We got hold of the yard and slip managers, Laura and Tammy, at Deltaville and were able to confirm that they had room for us to come in today; they would place us on the service bay wall near the travel lift where we would be lifted out the beginning of next week anyhow. In checking the bay conditions on the Windy app we did see where there was a significant, and building throughout the day, south wind predicted which with the fetch coming up the bay would have waves building to the point of issuing a small craft advisory starting at 5pm. We thus prepared the boat for what could be a bumpy ride and fate waiting for the fuel dock to become available moved over to fill up (205 gallons at 4.29…..ouch!) before departing Point Lookout a little before 10am.
The first 10-12 miles or so coming down the Potomac was pretty smooth cruising but as we exited the mouth of the river out onto The Chesapeake the waves increased to a steady chop with small whitecaps, but still very manageable since we were headed almost due south and directly into the waves. We kept up a pretty good pace (about averaging just under 14mph).
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| Day marker with many cormorants perched Still fairly smooth seas as we were coming off of the Potomac |
For the last 6 miles or so our course had us turning west to head toward the mouth of the Rappahannock River and Deltaville. By this point the waves had increased and were now a beam sea (coming at us and hitting on the side of the boat) making it rather uncomfortable and challenging to steer. Erik picked up the speed to about 22 mph in order to plane out and get the boat on top of the waves which both helped slightly as well as got us in quicker. Deltaville Yachting Center is located at the rear of a winding channel back off the river and bay about 1 mile making for a nicely protected area. By 1:15pm we had arrived and were tucked snuggly in along the wall near the travel lift/service bay.
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| Our 45.3 mile track from today’s voyage Including a brief top speed of 22.4 mph! Erik insists we must blow the carbon out of the engines occasionally 😝 |
We took some time to cool off in the AC with Riva before heading up to the offices to check in. The staff was very helpful and friendly giving us all the information and directions we requested. The marina and boat yard is very clean and well organized including a nice, well stocked ships store. They gave us codes for the bath house and pool access and informed us that we were welcome to use the marina courtesy car (always a nice added bonus when traveling). After walking Riva for a bit she was more than ready to retreat back to the now cool cabin of Happy Destiny while Renee and Erik suited up to head to the pool for the late afternoon. The pool, although warmer than we ideally like, was refreshing and even had a decent amount of shade covering a good portion of it. An added bonus is that this pool, unlike a couple others we had been at earlier in the trip that closed at 4-5pm (WTH is that all about?!), is technically open until 10pm but Tammy in the office had informed us that even that is not enforced as long as no one is being rowdy or noisy 🤗. At the pool we met and chatted for a while with a couple (Roger and Krysten) and their friend (Jenny) who had just gotten to Deltaville recently after spending 3 months in the Bahamas. They had lots of good information about the Bahamas (the good and the bad) that was nice to receive and will be useful to us if we decide to make that side trip/run after closing our Loop…hmmm we’ll see if that’s where we are lead in a couple of years.
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| Pool time! Maybe if you zoom close you’ll see how well the special toenail polish job Chelsea did for Renee before departing has held up 🤣 |
Leftover chicken tacos for a late dinner satisfied our appetites followed by showers and a nighttime finale of some bomb ass frappes had us prepared for a much needed slumber. It’s always nice to be at what is essentially our final destination for the year knowing that Happy Destiny again carried us to so many great towns and stops, but, at the same time this means that the end of our vacation and journey is drawing nearer 😔. Having about 5 days remaining
