EEEW!! More jellyfish in the sea strainer! They clog up the filter, and the generator or engine using the seawater for cooling gets too hot.
Jellyfish frappe. Yummy! (but don't touch, it still can sting you!)
Jellyfish, frolicking happily, in search of a sea strainer to clog.... There were a lot of them in Deltaville - they call them sea nettles, I call them annoying!
A big one, on its way to someones intake.... Too bad you can't eat them, we could have stocked up for the year, no doubt.
Bottom job - once again, time to clean the barnacles off the dingy. This job usually falls to Blayde's work detail.
While we were anchored out in Fishing bay, just off Deltaville, we decided to do some of the more heavy work that might not be welcomed at the dock we were hoping to find there. A few cracks needed welding on the capstrip, and some unaddressed corrosion issues were found on the deck hardware as well.
ZAP! This is what I like about having a steel boat. Insta-fix, as good as new! (well, not quite that easy, but compared to wood or fiberglass, it is a cinch!)
This cleat was so badly corroded that it had to be cut off the deck to be repaired. I'm not sure how we missed this in the yard, but I guess we were bound to miss a few details on a project that size.
Here you can see the hole in the base of the cleat. We cut it off, and using the welder, applied layers of new metal to the old part to build it back up to it's original shape and strength.
A Half hour and 20 or so welding rods later, and wallah! like new. Now to weld it back on the deck...
...Which was easier said than done, because some of the welding had to be done from the dinghy, which was being buffeted by the chop and the occasional wake of inconsiderate boaters.
But in the end, the job yielded to the indomitable will of the ignorant, (they who either do not know or refuse to believe that a task cannot be completed) and the cleat was reattached.
... then Laura, painting in her nightshirt, adds her finishing touches - and one can scarcely detect that the job was ever done - or needed to be. Ah, the joy of steel!!!
Laura the lovely, sitting outside the 7-11 convenience store.... Luckily for us, they were having their grand reopening, complete with coupons for free drinks, slushies, hot dogs, doughnuts, and coffee. We scooped up far more than our share, and these coupons quickly became a hot trading commodity onboard. In the end, I think 7-11 supported our appetite for junk food for the better part of a week - gratis - and we still have many cupons left, which we shamlessly continue to use at other 7-11 stores, much to the consternation of the employees who know nothing of the promotion.
Do I feel guilty? Nope. 7-Eleven, Inc. is 65 percent owned by IYG Holding Company, which is in turn jointly owned by Ito-Yokado Co., Ltd. and Seven Eleven Japan. The latter is itself a 50.3 percent owned subsidiary of Ito-Yokado, which is a leading Japanese retailer. The result of all this you see, is that my mooching off the 7-11 dole is helping to balance the trade deficit, by keeping american dollars from flowing overseas. If only everyone was so civic minded!
Deltaville, like many other places we have been directed to, was wonderfully pleasant, but altogether inadequate for handling a boat our size unless we wanted to pay a premium price. It would be Ideal if we were under 40 feet, but at 65 overall, and 37GRT, we have the needs of a small ship when it comes to dockage.
Once again, we find that most sailors cannot apreciate how the needs of a boat our size might differ from those of smaller vessels, and I suppose I should have anticipated this.
If we had not needed to find a secure dock (I would be leaving the boat for a month), the anchoring was fine - but unfortunately, the marina that could accommodate us wanted to charge yacht prices for our workboat budget, and the other docks were either too dilapidated or too shoal to safely hold us during any kind of weather.
Fortunately, we found our next port, Urbanna, right away. By this time, I had begun to realize that the places where we were best served, and most welcomed, were old deepwater harbors. These harbors tended to have a stronger maritime tradition, better shelter, less shoaling, and a more embracing culture than their fishing village counterparts. The local culture seemed to intrinsically understand the needs of the sailor, and not just see every boat as a cash crop....it is like the difference between welcome to our town, and welcome home. The cultural divide is easily as dramatic as island vs. mainland culture, and now we were about to get our best example of it yet, but that is another story....
Welcome to Urbanna, Virginia!! This was the first view that we had of Urbanna. We loved it here and I doubt that we could have found a community that was more welcoming and helpful. We have officially left a "footprint in Urbanna, Virginia".
Here is Blayde, off the deck as you can see, helping to raise the foresail. All the boys are really starting to understand the deck operations on the boat, and are readily becoming fantastic crew.
The way that we found Urbanna in the first place, was from a local magazine called 'The Rivah'. I was reading it one Sunday afternoon on the back deck of the boat, and found a whole section on a little town called "Urbanna". Of course, my first question was, where the heck is Urbanna?? So Tamer rode 38 miles round trip on his back to 'check out' the community and see if it would work for us. I do not think that there could have been a more perfect place! Tamer had to return to Alaska for 6 weeks for contract maintenance, and wanted us to be somewhere safe. The town marina at Upton Point was FANTASTIC!! We had a safe slip, water, electric, showers, laundry, wi-fi and a great staff there.
Here I am next to one of the trolley signs. The trolley runs until Labor day and costs only 25 cents to get where ever in town you need to go. We did not need to use it often though, because the pool, library, grocery store, coffee shop, video store, ice cream parlor, and favorite restaurant/social gathering place were all less than 7/10 of a mile from the marina.
A local church at sunset.....
The beautiful Miss Ann would come into Urbanna, and pass us at the dock every Saturday during their sunset cruise. She has recently been bought, and is out of touring commission.
The local miniature golf course and ice cream parlor provided some great entertainment the day before Daddy had to leave for Alaska on July 28th.
'The boys'
Blayde doing some work up the mast in the bosun's chair, shares his peace with the blog readers.
The epitome of The South! Garden & Gun was actually a very entertaining and informative magazine to read.
