Oops

We’ve noted before that this blog—in addition to providing entertainment of questionable value and inconsistent quality to millions of people around the globe—is our personal cruising diary.  Which means that we make notes along the way, and then an edited and summarized compilation of those notes somehow turns into a blog post.  The good folks at WordPress put the “publish” button in the general vicinity of the “save draft” button, however, so that someone with poor eyesight and fumble fingers easily might hit the wrong one in an inattentive moment and actually publish something rather than just save changes.  Which is what yielded the last truncated and inaccurate post.  The amazing thing is that this is the first time it happened.

So we really did go up to Wintergreen, and it really was fun.  But the part about leaving for Cape Charles was a premature error that would’ve been fixed or rendered accurate but for the wrong button.  And possibly but for the wine.

We also would’ve added a few other things.  On the way back on Wednesday, for example, we popped by St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond. 

Built in 1741.  Unfortunately it was closed, so Doug had to scale a wall and hang on to a shaky rusty fence that also may be over 250 years old just to get a nearly-worthless photo of the site where Patrick Henry supposedly made the proclamation for which he’s famous.

Before Misty Pearl was Misty Pearl she was named Patrick Henry, which either is an amazing coincidence or only barely relevant.  Also, the sign says that Edgar Allan Poe’s mother is buried at St. John’s.  We ate at Poe’s Tavern in Wrightsville Beach.

Richmond is full of history, but we had to choose between another lunch at Chuy’s or more sightseeing, which wasn’t much of a choice.  So after church and Chuy’s, we picked up some boat provisions and returned to the ZMI service dock.

The plan was to have all the work done so we could head to Cape Charles this morning, which is why we left Wintergreen Wednesday.  But the dinghy crane parts that the dude in Seattle said he shipped out via UPS last week never arrived (and oddly he couldn’t give us any tracking information.)  Which means we got back to Tumbleweed and the crane still was in pieces.

A few tidbits.  First, the unattractive warehousey building alongside of Tumbleweed may look innocent enough, but we’re quite certain the sole design criterion was to have it block even the most powerful cell and WiFi signals.  Mission accomplished.

Second, amongst all those buildings around the boatyard, there’s not a single one that houses a delicious restaurant serving up our favorite foods.  In fact, the closest such building is about twenty miles away in Gloucester.  We’d match up Bangkok Noi with any Thai place in the country, but it ain’t close enough to reach by foot or even by snazzy electric scooter. 

Third, that Mainship 400 in the photo is Red Pearl, which surprised us when we came back around the rickety corner Wednesday evening because she wasn’t there when we left.  We spent an awesome evening aboard Red Pearl the day we met Steve and Kathy in New Smyrna Beach and then they joined us at a Thai joint in St. Augustine that was good but not Bangkok Noi good.  We lost track of them when we left Thunderbolt back in April of 2019.  Sadly for us, Steve and Kathy know that when you’re stuck in Deltaville, get the heck out of Deltaville, because they were no place around.

Anyway, we in fact did leave the service dock this morning, because enough is enough.  Just as we passed the marina formerly known as Dozier’s, we spied a familiar transom peering out like a bear in a cave.

Dang.  We not only missed the Red Pearl crew, but while we were gone Jeff and Terri also came, dropped off Change of Pace, and high-tailed it to someplace else.  We really were hoping to meet up with them as they go south and we go north.

Out into the Chesapeake again.  Absolutely perfect day.

Unless you were the dude on a sailboat being towed to safety.  Then it wasn’t such a perfect day.  Except unless your sail has been shredded, do you really even need a tow?  According to Jimmy Buffett, “Einstein was a sailor.”  It shouldn’t take an Einstein to put sheets to the wind instead of calling Tow Boat US.

Our arrival in Cape Charles after an effortless few hours crossing the Bay reminded us why we love boating.  The town Dockmaster put us tight up against a cool little town where everything is reachable by foot.  In fairness they can’t fix our dinghy crane over here, but we hardly care.

The crane parts—which Seattle guy sent only after the guy who builds North Pacific Yachts leaned on him for us—arrived about five hours after we left.  That figures.  We’re staying here until Sunday, and then we have to go back across.  To Deltaville.  We spend so much time there we probably should just buy a house.