Olverson's Lodge Creek Marina

Father's Day
37 59.775 N
76 32.492 W

Yachts rafted on Mill Creek

We started engines and cast off from "Southern Estate" at 8:00 AM. There was a "Small Craft Advisory" for the Chesapeake and the lower Potomac but we did not think it looked too bad, we would be travelling in the lee, we only had 35 miles to travel and this was our last day. I would have liked to stay another day because it was an exceptional anchorage, but we have some hard dates to make and we were on a schedule.

As expected the conditions were OK. But the "gremlins" struck again. This time, the port engine started to overheat. Only by maybe 10 degrees, but the needle just should not move. Tide Hiker runs OK on one engine so I shut the port down and checked the strainer and the impeller. Both seemed OK. When I fired up the engine again, it went straight to 180 degrees and stayed there! I ran the engine all the way up to 2,000 RPM and the temperature was rock solid, and continued to be that way the rest of the day.

Mill Creek was a fun place to get in and out

We are now tied up at Olverson's. We spent a few days here last year. Its a very casual place on a river branch of the Potomac in a very rural area. The dock they assigned us is about 30% short and our stern is sticking out. The owner has promised to move us in the AM.

Tomorrow we plan to pick up a rental car and organize ourselves as well have birthday lunch with some friends. Tuesday we drive to Cleveland, about 480 miles. We spend Wednesday and Thursday with the kids then drive to Chicago on Friday. The rehearsal dinner is Friday night, the wedding Saturday. Sunday we drive back to Cleveland, Monday we drive to Elwood City where we will have dinner with Bill and Tonni and stay the night. Tuesday we drive back to the boat, Wednesday we rest and Thursday we head for Canada. Sounds like a plan!

Our arse hanging out at Olversons

Monday June 17, 2013

Happy Birthday to me.

Took it easy today. Borrowed the marina car and drove into Kilmarnock to meet friends for lunch at the "Car Wash Cafe" and to pick up the rental. When we got back to the boat it was nice and calm so we reversed the boat, and I am a lot happier with the new arrangement. Deidre did a few loads of wash and we packed our bags. We plan to hit the road at 8AM.

Much better #1

Much Better #2

Mill Creek

Saturday June 15
37 47.641 N
76 19.598 W

Bit of a frustrating day but it ended well.

We had agreed to travel with a boat we had met in Hampton with an ETD of 8:00AM but for some strange reason we were a bit late getting underway. As we pulled out of the river we saw a nuclear sub making its way out from the Norfolk side with a Coast Guard escort. The rule is that you have to maintain 500 yards distance and if you get within 100 yards they willl use 'deadly force". Well, it seemed they thought we were too close and over came the Coast Guard with the guy at the front manning the 50 mil machine gun. He shouted us some instructions which we could not hear, but we just "turned away" into the shoal that borders the channel and "got out of Dodge"

It did not seem that close at the time!

We were now in shallow water (10'-15') with lots of crab pots with the crab boats servicing them. They stop and start and wander around so they are a bit hard to predict. One of them stopped right in our path, a couple of hundred yards distant. I kept on course expecting him to move on after he had done his thing at that spot. By the time I decided I might run into him I was a bit choked in by crab pots and was not able to turn starboard until we were "a little close". Well, the "crabbers" were  not at all happy with me and there ensued a stream of abuse!

On the bright side it was a superb day, low 80's and only a slight breeze. But Tide Hiker seemed unwilling or unable to "go". Our usual cruise speed is about 7.1 kts at 1650 RPM and we were barely doing 6 kts. At times we even fell back to low 5 kts. And she did not want to go straight - the auto pilot needed 8 degrees of "set" to keep her on course. I checked the tide tables and they said we were running with the flood! I was very bothered.

Please do not point that thing at me!

There was just no reasonable explanation other than we had picked up a crap pot on a stabilizer fin or the running gear. I imagined the crab pot being dragged thru the water or along the bottom and the poor crabs drowning in the flood of water. So we stopped and as we drifted I tried to probe the running gear with a boat hook. No dice. We continued on with the same symptoms.

An hour or so later my frustration got to a point where I decided to swim under the boat and look for myself. So we stopped the boat and shut down the engines and I donned the shorty and goggles and jumped in. I am not concerned about drowning but I am now concerned about the shock of the water giving me a heart attack. So I dived on each part of the boat but with no result. Dissapointed, we resumed.

Rafted Up

Amazingly, the boat was now OK! She went straight up to 7.2 kts and drove straight. This is a mystery.

Our friends were an hour ahead of us and by 4:30 PM had anchored in Mill Creek. They called on the radio and invited us to raft up and dinner. We were rafted up by 5:30 and enjoyed fun dinner.

Hampton (Still)

Thursday June 13 

Relaxing day. Deidre went ashore and had her hair cut and her nails done. The last time she had her hair cut was in Australia and it cost $100 - yesterday it was $15 plus a tip and she was happy with the result. She came home bearing gifts - two meat pies and two pasties from the local "British Shop". Yummy!

I spent the time she was away prepping the boat for "the big blow" with expected storm winds up to 70 MPH. Had 8 lines to the dock and stripped of loose stuff that might blow away. Spent some hours researching our Canada trip.

The storm arrived right on time about 6PM and was over by about 6:05PM without much to show. We must have just been in a "gap" because cities around us were hit harder, and there were the usual reports of power lines down and flash flooding on the TV. But for us, virtually nothing but a bit of rain.

After all settled down we wandered over to the Air and Space Museum for an hour or so and then looked for a restaurant for dinner. The town was deserted. None of the restaurants were very appealing and some had closed. The meat pies were calling us.........

Friday June 14

We have decided to stay another night. There is a "Small Craft Advisory" on the Bay till 4 PM and the bouys are showing 20 Kt winds with gusts to 30 kts. The weather would be right on our nose, so there would be a lot of upping and downing. But we had to move to a "back into" slip which was a bit of a struggle.

After settling down we borrowed the marina bikes and explored the local university and the adjacent war cemetery. On the way back we ran into the people from a trawler anchored in the basin (you can see it in the photo below) and invited them over for a drink at 4:30.

Its Fion'a's birthday next week

Our new slip - its about 1/3 the length of the boat

Very sobering but well cared for

We eat so well

Hampton, Virginia

June 12, 2013
37 01.443 N
76 20.476 W

The plans of mice and men....
There is some bad weather arriving Thursday, so last night I spend a few hours searching for an appropriate anchorage to hide in for two nights. When we woke this morning I checked the forecast again. The storm was still there but the wind direction had been changed somewhat. So I spent another half an hour picking another destination as we ate a hurried breakfast and prepared the boat for departure. Last thing, I called the lock-master to request passage at 9:00 AM - the conversation went a bit like this:

Tide Hiker: This is northbound motor vessel Tide Hiker requesting passage at 9:00AM
Lockmaster: "Sorry, the lock is broken"
Tide Hiker: When will it be fixed?
Lockmaster: We don't know what's wrong with it!
Tide Hiker: When will you know?
Lockmaster: "We will tell you when we can!
Tide Hiker: We will hail you in an hour

This dialog was repeated every hour or so until about 1 PM. By then two tugs with barges in tow and a dozen recreational boats had accumulated in front of the dock gates. Fortunately we were comfortably tied to the shore. Most other boats just had to "hold" in the pool between the lifting bridge and the lock gates.

Some time about 1 PM I heard the Lockmaster hail one of the barges and tell them to start moving into the lock. So we fired up Tide Hiker and moved in behind the barge. It was a bit tight, and we had to watch out for the prop wash from the tug, but we made it through OK.

Once we were through the lock we were in the port of Norfolk. For me this is great fun because there are submarines and aircraft carriers and floating docks and all sorts of "good stuff". One interesting piece of equipment was the "hammerhead crane" (photo on the left). In the days of battleships this crane was used to lower the giant gun turrets onto new war ships. Because the turrets were so heavy but the bearing surfaces so easy to damage, the ship was positioned under the crane and the turret was lowered to within a few inches of the ship. Then they would wait for the tide to lift the ship and gently complete the job.

Needless to say, all our planning was now moot as most of the day had been spent waiting for the lock. Because of the delay our options had closed up somewhat so decided to bail out and find a marina. We had not been to Hampton before and it sounded interesting and so here we are. We arrived at 5 PM and tied up right in front of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, very posh.

Boats rolling in - note the tug & barge

Sitting down on the job

Nice and tight with the tug

Hammer head crane

George Bush

Hospital Ship

Today;s photo

Great Bridge, VA

Tuesday June 11, 2013
36 43.265 N
76 14.462 W

Looking towards the lifting bridge

Back in one of my favorite spots. We are tied up to the wall between the bridge and the lock. We step off the boat onto cut grass, and we get to wave at all the passing boats. . Plus there is a Mexican restaurant just up the road. Deidre is sitting on the aft deck reading a book. Its about 85 degrees.
Easy run today, maybe 35 miles. It was quite windy earlier in the day but just a breeze now. There are several opening bridges in this section so the boats tend to get a bit bunched up. We lined up with a dozen or so boats waiting for Great Bridge to open.

Let's go!!!

.

Today's photo

Coinjock marina

Monday June 10, 2013
36 21.102 N
75 56.856 W

The wind settled down overnight and eventually we got a good night's sleep. It was calm when we dragged ourselves out of bed in the AM but the sky looked quite threatening. The forecast indicated 90% chance of rain, which sorta summed it up.

Albemarle Sound seems to be a bit of an awkward location on the trip north -  Norfolk is too far away for one day and too close for two, and there are not a lot of decent anchorages in between. Therefore, especially since the weather is a bit crappy, we have decided to go only 30 miles to an inexpensive marina at a place called Coinjock. It's a bit in the middle of nowhere, but there is a restaurant that we will ride our bikes to.

"Let's go below"

The trip was uneventful except for thunder storms that rolled thru. We must have missed 90% of the rain from pure luck, but had to scurry down to the pilot house a couple of times. An advantage of being on the water is that you can see the rain coming - if you look.

We are now tied up with the air conditioning blasting away, and planning the bike ride. Its quite stormy outside, maybe we should take our umbrella?

The ride to the restaurant turned out to be a bit harder than expected. It was about 3 1/2 miles each way and involved riding/walking

Back from the bathrooms

over a very busy high clearance bridge. There was no sidewalk and so we walked our bikes in the narrow berm. Obviously we could not make the return trip in the dark so that restricted the time we had to eat. There were a lot of fancy boats on the other side (It was $0.25 a foot more expensive, hence we were on the "wrong side".) Dinner was forgettable. We made it home OK and immediately iced Deidre's ankle.

(PS: This morning I was pleased to see that Collingwood thrashed Melbourne. I hope Townsend was watching)

Alligator River/Albermale Sound

Sunday June 9, 2013
35 54.747
75 57.963

Despite the heat we both seemed to sleep well. The morning was very humid with fog or mist. We got underway by 10 AM and enjoyed the cooler air up on the bridge.

The ICW passed thru some very primitive country. Both sides of the waterway were vast Cyprus swamps, as far as we could see. We had not internet or phone service. A couple of thunderstorms past overhead and we were in and out. There was very little traffic. Not a good spot to break down!

The forecast for tonight was 5 - 10 kt winds from the south. To avoid the heat of last night I picked a spot that is a bit exposed to the south, hoping we will get some breeze. But the wind has picked up and we are bouncing around and now I feel a bit too exposed. But the internet signal is quite strong.