When we got up Friday morning, the Chesapeake was a totally different creature. Where before she was pounding us with waves and wind, now she was calm with light winds. Ben and Jeannette had spent the night with friends in the Norfolk area and were now driving up to check on their sailboat - a 30ft S2 named Mathilde. After a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pastries, we headed around Stingray Point and into Broad Creek. This is a VERY nice area with close to a dozen marinas all packed close together. Ben met us at the dock at Walden Marina, where we got a transient slip for $30 for the night (that is insanely cheap, by the way).
There, Ben introduced us to his friend, Phil, who acted as chauffeur, giving us rides to see Mathilde and some great lunch at Cocomos. They hid it well, but this was a special day for Ben and Jeannette - their 49th wedding anniversary!!! After getting back to our boat, Ed and I went back to Mathilde by dinghy and did some work on the electronics and top-side cleaning as a present for them both. I'm not sure how much good I did (I've never been a particularly good cleaner), but she definitely looked better! In the mean-time, Ed got their electrical system working, especially the battery charger and the AIR CONDITIONER! Yes, their boat has a nice little set up with an AC unit sitting in the companion way hatch! We are going to have to set up something like that on Second Wind, no doubt.
Official service company endorsement : Our Raymarine autopilot has been fussy, and after taking it apart, Ed discovered that the belt was old, brittle, and about to completely fall apart. We looked on-line at several places, but wanted to check locally first. I'm glad we did! We used Ben's rental car to go over to Marine Electronics of Hartfield and met Kevin Fay there. He had the belt waiting for us and then gave us a ton of valuable advice on getting the most out of the device, including care of the mechanical parts, as well as recalibrating the software. Truly outstanding service and I will be contacting him in the future about the rest of the Raymarine system on-board Second Wind! Thank you very much, Kevin!!!!
After fixing a leak in the floor of the dinghy, pumping out the holding tank, and topping off the water tanks, we are headed back down the Chesapeake. We are thinking our destination is back to Willoughby Bay for the night, with the intention of entering the Dismal Swamp portion of the ICW shortly thereafter, maybe Monday morning. We aren't entirely sure yet. While we are anchored in Norfolk, I understand I have some family in the area that I haven't seen in a very long time, so we are going to see about contacting them.
Next update should be from the Norfolk area!
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