Travel bug

We are underway northbound in the Chesapeake Bay, making tracks toward our next scheduled stop, in New Jersey. It's been an eventful couple of weeks, and I want to catch up the travelogue here before it again gets away from me. The write-up of the Sail250 and Harborfest events will have to wait.

Vector tucked in at Little Creek Marina, as seen from the bridge over the creek.

I ended the last post on Sunday evening, our final evening at anchor off Hospital Point. Monday morning was the end of the show, but we needed to weigh anchor early to have a favorable tide out the Elizabeth River. We were on our way out of downtown before the first tall ships left the dock. It turns out that had us running right into a half dozen warships from several countries all backing out of slips at Naval Station Norfolk, we assume for FleetEX 250. The pilot aboard a Brazilian destroyer called us to ask us to move over to the red side, which meant I later had to call a pilot aboard a different warship to cross back. It was amusing to leave the harbor in a conga line of warships.

This Brazilian warship is overtaking us after backing out as we passed by.

We arrived to our destination of Little Creek right after lunch, made a quick stop at Cobbs Marina for a pump-out (our reserved marina's pump was down), and were backed in, tied up, and plugged in at our slip at Morningstar Little Creek (map) just as the mercury climbed into the upper 90s. We were thankful to have the power for the air conditioning, and spent the rest of the day inside. It was too hot to go anywhere else, so we ate at the on-site restaurant, Stony's Dockside, which was decent. An expected storm hit around midnight that gave the boat a good rinse, but also had me on deck moving fenders so we would not hit our neighbor just a foot off our starboard side.

Vector at Little Creek marina.

We arrived here a full day early, and Tuesday was spent packing and getting ready for our trip to Nevada. I got in an early walk before the heat became brutally oppressive, making stops at UPS, the grocery store, and a barber for my ministerial 'do. The heat and another storm trapped us on the boat all afternoon, and we finished up some leftovers aboard for dinner.

Wednesday morning we had a 5am Uber to the airport, which from here is just a ten-minute ride, and we were off on our whirlwind visit to the Reno/Lake Tahoe area for our niece Jennifer's wedding. We were on the ground in Reno by 1:30, picked up a car, checked into our local hotel, and met up with local friends at a Chili's across the street. It's been a very long time since we were last here, and it was great reconnecting with Dee, Julie, Jim, JC, Melissa, and Jimmy Joe over dinner.

Sunset over the Sierra Nevada from our hotel in Reno.

Thursday we drove up the hill to Stateline and South Lake Tahoe, which is something of a trip down memory lane for us. We'd both spent a lot of time here between skiing, camping, and motorcycling over the years. We checked in to our hotel and then met up with the family. It was great to have a day before most of the wedding guests started arriving.

The bride's family's condo had a lovely view over the lake.

Friday was the rehearsal, wherein we all learned just how windy it was going to be lakeside for the ceremony on Saturday. Afterwards was the welcome dinner at another lakeside venue, and I tried to meet as many guests as possible so I would not be facing so many unfamiliar people at the ceremony. I quickly exhausted my capacity to remember names and relationships, but it was great meeting everyone and it was a fun party.

Saturday was the big day, and after a hearty breakfast at the hotel I did some eleventh-hour practice on my delivery, mindful of the wind forecast for the lake. Being on east coast time we were up early every morning and had the mornings to ourselves. We took a good half hour to get dressed; it's been over a decade since I last donned black tie. I even had a brand new wing-collar formal shirt delivered to the hotel for the occasion; my two older ones were showing their age.

We visited one of the many parks on a free morning. This sort of vista takes me back; it is one of the things we miss living on the boat.

We got to the lovely Edgewood Resort a half hour early for sound checks; as I stepped up to the trellis I could see spray whipping off the lake onto my pant legs. There was a small craft advisory and two to three footers on the lake, with maybe 15kt winds onshore. Louise wisely brought warm fall clothes to this summer wedding, and I was quite comfortable in a wool tuxedo.

Pretty much everything went to plan, and, wind-tossed as they were, the entire wedding party filed in in grand style. I was a bit teary-eyed watching my niece walk down the aisle, but I managed to hold things together for the relatively short ceremony. I did not draw anything out, with the wind uncomfortable for many, and all too soon I was pronouncing them husband and wife and sending them off to the relative comfort of the more sheltered patio for pre-reception cocktails.

Officiating. Photo: Joyce Irby 

My part thus mostly concluded, I was happy to assume the role of just another wedding guest. It was a great reception, and we ate, drank, and danced a lot. After the reception, Louise dropped me at the after-party (seriously) before driving herself back to the hotel. This may have been a mistake, as the young groomsmen insisted on plying myself and the father of the bride with shots. I escaped with only minor damage after about an hour when I caught a ride to the hotel with the bride's parents. I tip-toed into the room at 1am, or 4am on my internal clock.

Louise snapped this between dances. That's the resort's signature espresso martini in my hand.

Sunday morning we went to the farewell brunch, where we again saw I would say the majority of the guests as they filtered through on their way out of town. It was at this point that Louise and I parted company; she needed to be in the Bay Area Monday morning to get her mom moved into assisted living, something of a last-minute change to our itinerary. She caught a ride to SFO with friends, and I stuck with our original flight and hotel arrangements.

I did my best to live up to this bobblehead doll, a gift of the bride and groom a few months ago.

That included driving our other niece Lauren, the bride's sister, to the Reno airport Monday morning. On the way we stopped in Minden at the county recorder's office so I could discharge my final ministerial obligation of filing the marriage paperwork. After dropping Lauren off at the airport I had time for a final lunch with our good friend Dee before turning the rental car in and hopping on the shuttle to the Silver Legacy resort downtown for the night.

Yes, that is a pair of black bears seeing if they can get in the back door of the condo. No, we did not open it for them.

I had a final few hours to myself to stroll Reno and marvel both at what has changed and at what has stayed the same in the 45 years I've been coming here. I ended up eating dinner at the cafe in the Whitney Peak Hotel, a rare casino-less establishment on the strip that was blissfully quiet compared to its surroundings. I remember when this building was, instead, Fitzgerald's Casino. I took a spin through the midway at the Circus Circus just for old time's sake, though there was no show when I passed through. And I turned in early to make the 4:00am shuttle to the airport, the entire reason I chose this hotel in the first place.

This did not exist on any of my early visits to Reno. 78 lanes.

The resort and all of Reno was packed with bowlers here for the months-long USBC championship at the National Bowling Stadium, and I think the shuttle driver must have loaded 50 bowling balls before he started taking normal luggage. Bowlers, it seems, all travel with a minimum of three balls in their luggage. I was at the airport in plenty of time for my pair of uneventful flights, and I was back at the boat by 6:30, walking over to Stony's for a quick bite. The place was packed with people in Sweden team colors for the FIFA match, some of whom appeared to be actual Swedes.

The Swedes and their cohort. Very cheerful considering they lost the match.

Tahoe had been blissfully cool, and even Reno was comfortable (it's a dry heat) compared to what I faced on my return. Wednesday temperatures had climbed into the 90s by lunch time, and after picking up some packages at the office I basically shut myself in the air conditioned boat. After getting unpacked I spent a good deal of time researching and ordering a new computer for Louise. At dinner time I braved the heat on the e-bike to run to The Dirty Buffalo for draft beer and dinner before making a quick stop for milk on the way home.

Lake Powell, rather what's left of it, from the air.

Thursday was another scorcher and I resigned myself to more inside projects. Our friend Dave had gifted us an electronic piano that had some inoperative keys, and I tore into that, quickly learning that it was every eighth key was was dead. That gave me false hope that it was just a ribbon cable or a bad connector on the key matrix, but after two days of working on it I had to concede defeat and consign it to the dumpster. I took the e-bike to Regino's for dinner, decent Italian food but the bar was charmless. By the time I turned in, I had the sense I was coming down with some kind of crud; my niece had reported getting sick after I dropped her at the airport. I had taken a quick walk at 11pm, when the temps had finally come down into the 80s, and I found myself getting chills.

Attempted keyboard repair. I had to take all those keys off to get to enough of the circuit board.

The descent was rapid, and whatever it was had me flat on my back for the next couple of days. It was all I could do to finish up the keyboard project and then just vegetate in my easy chair watching videos. On Saturday, fearing the worst, I took one of our remaining viral tests, which immediately came up positive for Influenza-A. No wonder I was miserable. By the end of the day Saturday I was out of cold meds.

Enough said. I want more of these tests, which we got as part of a clinical study.

Sunday morning I had a rental car booked, and so I put on an N-95 mask to go get it. I immediately hit up the drugstore for some more cold meds and the grocery to replenish the lunch supply. I again donned the N-95 to pick Louise up at the airport, one of the two reasons I had originally booked the car.

My seatmate on the flight to Norfolk.

Yesterday morning I was feeling considerably better, and I headed off stag to Viking Lifesaving to pick up our freshly recertified liferaft. Complete service on the raft was north of $1,500, but we're good now for another three years. We loaded the raft aboard and I returned the car while Louise wrapped up the last of the laundry in preparation for departure.

We were both sitting in the saloon waiting for the dryer to finish when we felt something hit the boat hard. We ran on deck to see another boat backing in to the slip next to us, and he had underestimated the cross-current and gotten cattywampus on his way back. We had several fenders out on that side from when we originally backed in next to another boat, having left them there for just this sort of thing. But we could not be so lucky that he would have just hit the fenders; his steel rub rail hit our paint forward of the fenders, with one of the mounting screws taking a big gouge.

Another gouge. Through the paint, primer, and part of the fairing, but thankfully not to bare steel.

Normally I would have just gotten contact information and insurance from them, but after the mate first told us they did not hit, and then, when confronted with the actual damage, told us it was not them and we'd just have to fight it out with their insurance, we just called the Virginia Marine Police instead. They dispatched an officer who was about a half hour out; we informed the marina we would need to remain in the slip until they arrived.

Our paint embedded in their rub rail screw.

Considering we had a fresh gouge, and some of our paint was embedded in their rub rail, it was pretty cut and dried and I expect the report to read that way. I do have their insurance information; this is the third time we have been hit while docked in the span of a year, all in Virginia, and this is the third Progressive insured responsible. As soon as I have the police report I will be calling Progressive to file a claim; the last claim is still open since we have yet to repair the damage. We might be eligible for the Progressive Frequent Guest club.

Tennessee River.

All of that delayed our departure by another hour and a half or so, but at least we had air conditioning. We were finally off the dock and leaving Little Creek a little before 1pm. Due to the short day, I had picked out an anchorage off Mobjack Bay, a ten mile detour from our usual route. But an hour or so into the cruise, with the air temperature well into the 90s and the seawater temperature not much cooler at 88°, we decided to push on to Deltaville with a 7:30pm arrival so we could have more air conditioning without running the generator.

Passing over the Elizabeth River, with the Hospital Point anchorage much quieter than a week earlier.

Perhaps an hour out of Deltaville I stepped in a puddle on my way to the galley. The condensate drain pan for the pilothouse air conditioner, into which the drain from our mini-split is routed, had overflowed. Accessing that drain plumbing to figure out why is a major challenge, and so we just rerouted the mini-split drain into a bucket, an arrangement we had worked out while running it on the hard. We have to empty the bucket every hour until I can get the proper drain working again.

Condensate collector.

We dropped the hook in a new spot for us (map), in the other arm of the creek, but close to our old haunt at Deltaville Boatyard. Our friends Tim and Crisalida aboard s/v Paquita are just across the neck at a different boatyard, and it would have been great to get together for a beer at the Deltaville Tap Room adjacent to our anchorage, but I definitely do not want to pass the flu along to them. I likewise could have visited with friends Stacey and Dave aboard Stinkpot, who were docked a half hour away in Great Bridge while I had the rental car, but I did not want to risk transmission.

Moonrise over Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek.

The very full day and the lingering fatigue of the flu had me crashing early last night, and we had a quiet night in the anchorage. We were headed back out of Jackson Creek by 8 this morning. Solomons is a long day from Deltaville, at 9-10 hours, but once again we wanted the nearly-free air conditioning for the majority of the day. Right now the plotter says a 6pm arrival, and the CDC says I should no longer be contagious, so maybe we will tender ashore for dinner.