Norfolk, Virginia

The lovely Laura Lee and I made it safely to Norfolk, Virginia Sunday after two long days of travel. I am still getting to know the boat and its equipment, but it gets better by the day. The trip was uneventful except for an adventurous effort at docking in high winds Saturday afternoon.

Sunday evening we were treated to a visit from our old friend Mollie Sawyer and her son Zachery. Mollie is just a sparkling personality, and we were only reminded how much we have missed her. She and her family are temporarily living in Norfolk while her husband Mark completes his final year before retiring from the Coast Guard.

For readers who do not know her, Mollie was director of fitness at The Ford Plantation until just over three years ago when Mark was reassigned from Savannah to Paducah, Kentucky. She created from scratch the outstanding fitness program at the Ford Sports Barn that continues to be maintained by her successor, John Lindsey. In the process, Mollie should get full credit for helping me turn around my own slovenly ways. While working out with her, riding a bike, and watching my diet, I was able to get in better shape, and not incidentally lose about 25 pounds. The weight mostly remains off today, not counting the little upward blip brought on by the holidays. It was great catching up, and we hope to see her again soon.

Laura Lee headed home Monday, leaving me to mess about with the boat while I await my crew members who arrive Friday. I have had plenty to do. Tomorrow and Thursday I will be provisioning for a week of cold travel, which of course requires grog rations for the crew.

Traveling by boat this time of year in Maryland and Virginia is made more difficult as marinas prepare for winter. We were unable to refill the fresh water tank before leaving Herrington Harbor because the marina water was shut down for winter. Our stop Saturday night in Reedville, Virginia also had no water, and in fact we never saw a single human being while we were there. We were fortunate to refill the water here in Norfolk, but I was told it too will be turned off tomorrow in anticipation of a low tomorrow night of 30 degrees and Thursday night of 27 degrees. It is time to get moving to the south. 

We'll be reporting in for those interested in our travels.  Stay tuned. The adventure continues.

Starting Home

This morning started out chilly and raining as we began our journey to bring Division Belle home to Georgia. But the weather had actually warmed in the last 24 hours. It was in the low 40's today compared to yesterday morning when it was around 30 degrees with icy spots on the docks. We departed from Herrington Harbor North Marina in Deale, MD at 7:15 am, and we are now underway in the Chesapeake Bay. We plan to stop at Reedville, VA this afternoon, about 2/3 of the way to Norfolk, our destination tomorrow.

I actually thought about turning back this morning, due to fog. Visibility was less than one mile and I am not an expert on the radar on this boat. However, we decided to run for awhile and the fog gradually lifted as we moved south. The weather is clearing now, but wind has picked up to 15 to 20 knots from the west, so it's a little bumpy in the bay. 

It seems a very long time since spending my first few nights on the boat in October. I have promised to avoid writing about maintenance and repairs because they are boring subjects -- but let's just say a lot has been done to the boat, including a shiny new paint job for the hull. The paint work and numerous other tasks were handled by Zimmerman Marine at their Herrington Harbor location. They did beautiful work and were a pleasure to work with.

The lovely Laura Lee and I drove a rental car from Savannah to Annapolis last weekend so that we could bring more "stuff" to the boat. We spent the New Year's holiday in Annapolis and the boat was launched on Wednesday, January 2. After a couple of days provisioning, and one brief sea trial, we are finally underway.

The plan is for Laura Lee to fly home from Norfolk and my friends Jim Trolinger and Paul Hamilton will join me there on January 11 for about a week to help bring Division Belle part of the way home to Georgia. It is the nature of traveling confined on a boat that we shall either be much better friends after the trip or not like each other at all. I predict the former. 

It is normal in a deep-draft seaworthy boat to want to get out in the ocean on delivery trips. There are few worries about shallow spots, it is not necessary to hand steer all day, and there is little traffic to dodge. The boat can be set on autopilot and it is a relaxing journey just keeping a lookout. But moving down the coast from Norfolk, Virginia into the Carolinas presents three significant obstacles to traveling offshore: Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, and Cape Fear. Each of them juts out into the Atlantic and requires getting well offshore to go around. The outside trip also requires long legs with nowhere to take shelter if the winds and seas pick up. As a result, the inside route is preferable to most people, and it is shorter by about 50 nautical miles from Norfolk to Southport, NC, south of Cape Fear.

There are a few options that can be considered on the inside routes. Norfolk is Mile Zero of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), and one can just follow it for the entire route, or if the weather is good, it shortens the route a bit to go outside from Morehead City to Wrightsville Beach and rejoin the waterway to Southport, just south of Cape Fear. At the beginning of the trip south, it is also possible to shave some distance by going outside by Virginia Beach and back into the sounds at Oregon Inlet, but the inlet is notorious for shifting shoals and shallow spots. Finally, from the Albemarle Sound, there is a shortcut across the sounds to rejoin the ICW in the Neuse River. If the weather is good, our route will be down the waterway from Norfolk to the Albemarle Sound, the shortcut across the Albemarle, Croatan, and Pamlico Sounds, and then rejoining the waterway at the Neuse River and down to Morehead City/Beaufort, NC. From there, weather permitting, it will be out in the ocean to Wrightsville Beach and then back inside to Southport. That would put us almost to South Carolina and close to home.

I have no idea how far we will get in a week, but the joy of a slow 8-knot boat is that it doesn't really matter. It's all about the journey, and we shall enjoy every minute of it.

The lady is having some work done

Many friends have asked when I will actually begin using the new boat. I should just politely say that the lady is having some minor surgery. Owning a boat simply means moving it from one place to another to have repairs done.

I spent all of last week working with Mick Shove, one of the partners at Burr Yacht Sales, to troubleshoot some of the many things that were found not to work during the initial survey and inspections. Mick is very good at tracking down a lot of mysteries, and many items have now been checked off or we have determined what parts or work are needed. Importantly, I found the loose wires that were causing the satellite dish not to work, and Mick put them back together. It will now need a new receiver box to replace the ancient one on board. Friday, the engine mechanics from a company called ShorePower arrived and began draining all of the fluids from the engine and removing big parts like the turbo after-cooler to take to the shop to clean or refurbish. They are expected to complete their tasks by the end of next week. 

Next Friday or the following Monday the boat will be moved to Zimmerman Marine, a boatyard within the gigantic Herrington Harbor Marina. There it will be hauled out of the water on a travel lift and the 100,000-pound boat will be driven into a shed where the hull will be painted and the varnish stripped down to bare wood and redone with about a dozen coats. This is expected to take approximately six weeks with a target completion date of November 30. While it is there, there are roughly 20 items to be repaired that require the boat to be out of the water, and the interior upholstery will also be recovered as specified by the lovely Laura Lee. Division Belle should emerge looking much better after her facelift, and with her new name and Richmond Hill, Georgia painted in gold on the stern.

So far, I took the wheel for about five minutes during the initial sea trial, but otherwise I have not driven the boat at all. It's a project.
I don't expect to be posting anything here until December, because maintenance is essentially boring. And besides, it is not polite to disclose details of work a lady has had done to maintain her lovely and young appearance.

Many thanks to those of you who are following this adventure. If you haven't done so, please click at the right to add your email address and receive any updates. And feel free to click below if you wish to publish comments.

First night on Division Belle

Saturday I drove some 10 1/2 hours from Richmond Hill, GA to Edgewater, MD with my car loaded down with tools and a few necessities for the boat. I spent Saturday night at a nearby motel and arrived at the boat Sunday morning around 6 am. Yesterday (Sunday) was for unloading gear and stowing equipment while today was devoted to making things livable and providing for necessities such as coffee in the morning. All the while, I have interrupted myself figuring out how everything works on this boat.

While I was exhausted last night, it was fun spending a night on the boat just to experience it all. For example, because this boat has been in a cold climate, the freshwater tank had anti-freeze added to it, so it was necessary to empty the tank, fill it with fresh water and some kind of treatment, empty it again and refill it. The process took about eight hours. It takes a long time to run sinks wide open and use up 480 gallons of contaminated water.

Sleep was fitful last night with all of the usual boat noises. Pumps turn off and on to run heater/air conditioners, boats go by, the boat rocks. There are new and strange noises. But it really does feel amazing to be doing this again.

My shopping costs in Savannah and here have been helped enormously by the Sears expected bankruptcy filing which has now occurred. The Savannah Sears is closing and I picked up boat tools at around half price. Here near Annapolis, I bought some basics yesterday and today from K-Mart, which might face a similar fate since it is owned by Sears. It's a sad and sorry end to a great brand. But hey, who can argue with buying a couple of decent coffee mugs for 89 cents each today?

If there are any readers of this new blog, please sign up to your right on this page to receive email updates. Also, you can see a map of where I am at each posting by clicking the location shown at the bottom of the post. I'm hoping to make it interesting reading, but you can be the judge of that.

While I plan to stay away from discussions of boat maintenance, I can't help but note that one of my blog entries about my last boat was called "What was wrong with Steel Magnolia". This is a well-built boat, but it has had little maintenance. The systems are elegant, but they don't all work. Our plan involves four steps. First, a representative from Burr Yacht Sales where I bought the boat will be here tomorrow for about two days of troubleshooting minor problems. These are things like the horn works from the pilothouse but not from the bridge, the washing machine has no hot water, etc. Second, mechanics will be on board beginning Friday to bring all of the engine room maintenance up to date, and fix a few problems. Third, we will go to a nearby boatyard to deal with things where the boat needs to be hauled out of the water. And finally, there are cosmetic issues including paint, varnish, cushion and sofa coverings, etc. that we will have done wherever we can achieve the best results either here, along the way home, or in Savannah.

There is much to be done, but as my mother used to say, "God, grant me the serenity to endure my blessings". I never thought I would own another boat, and I am forever grateful for this opportunity to follow my dreams once more. As Alfred, Lord Tennyson said in Ulysses:

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.