WEEK 7 LOG - Deltaville, Virginia

Well, week seven finds us still in Deltaville at the boatyard.

We arrived in Deltaville (marina and boat yard) on Friday just in time for the annual seafood festival. It is a quaint little town with locally owned small businesses only. Over the weekend we were hosted by Curtis Stokes and Ed Tillman (Waterway guide) to happy hours, breakfast, an evening cookout and a few seminars. We liked one in particular where we learned about weather and cruising on the Chesapeake from the experts. The town is small so we saw most everything by the end of the weekend.

Deltaville Seafood Festival

Farm on the outskirts of town

Session on Cruising the Chesapeake
 presented by Ed Tillman & Curtis Stokes

Beautiful sculpture garden at the Deltaville Maritime Museum

We did get the boat hauled on Monday, and like many a boatyard experience, it is taking longer than we thought or hoped. While replacing the shaft seals is a quick and easy job, upon inspection it turned out the stuffing boxes the shaft seals ride in are worn out and need to be replaced, and the cutlass bearings also were showing a lot of wear. So, the boat is blocked up “on the hard” while we wait for the needed parts to arrive. Hopefully we will be back in the water ready to go by this next Monday.

Coming out of the water in Deltaville

That raises the question of what to do with ourselves while the boat is in the yard. We can’t really stay on the boat while it is on the hard. The two aft staterooms are torn up for access to the engines, and stuff is piled up everywhere.  Also, the only access to the boat is by climbing a tall rickety ladder, which is hard for us and impossible for Bella the dog.

The contents of both aft staterooms cleared out for access to the engine compartments

On the hard in Deltaville

                                                                 

But things are working out OK…. we were going to take some time to visit relatives in the Washington DC area anyway, so why not take advantage of this (forced) opportunity? We rented a car and took the three hour drive up and are having a great time. DC is full of fun things to do and is beautiful in the spring, and to tell the truth it is nice to get the heck off the boat for a while and visit with family.

Bella enjoying the pool & playmate

Our luxury accommodations

Bob and Denise's lovely pool oasis

Bob with Laser and Jonathan with Bella

Hopefully the end of next week will see us somewhere up by the northern head of Chesapeake Bay, ready to make the run down Delaware Bay to Cape May, New Jersey.