Friday, May 29th
Air temp 74, water temp 75, winds S @ 10
It was a warm night and we were glad to be at the dock with our air-conditioning running. Even though we can run it off our Honda Generator now, it takes a lot of gasoline (a gallon every 3-4 hours?) and the generator is a little noisy at that speed. So, plugging into the marina power is nice.
Yesterday was National Hamburger Day (Laura found it somewhere) so we grilled burgers for dinner. We decided to do "Whoppers" with all the fixin's. Yumm!
No hurry to get going this morning as we were waiting for our old propeller to be rebuilt. The marina had sent it to Wildcat Propellers yesterday with my "request" that it be done today because we wanted to leave Great Bridge tomorrow. There we no promises that it would be done today so we just had to wait. My biggest worry was since it was Friday, we might have to wait until Monday. Oh well. I can't do it myself so I'll just have to wait.
I gave myself until after lunch before checking on the prop with the marina. I don't like to be a pain-in-the-butt as it usually doesn't get the job done any faster.
Around 1pm Laura put together a load of laundry and I helped her carry it up to the laundry room. As we were walking by the mechanic who changed our prop yesterday, he turned to me and said our rebuilt prop was done and sitting by the store. YEA! We walked over and checked it out. The edges were straight now and it had been cleaned up nicely.
I walked into the office to see if our bill was ready. The lady who did invoices was out to lunch so I left a message that Second Wind wanted to checkout and helped Laura with the laundry.
We use Microsoft To-Do (from the iPhone app store) for things like grocery lists and boat checklists. There were a few items on the list so I decided to walk the 1/2 mile or so to Kroger and pick up the few things while waiting for the office gal and the laundry. A short time later I was on my way. It was looking like rain but I was hoping to make it back quickly.
I did have to look around for a few cooking things that Laura wanted and, of course, thought of a few "extra" things as I was shopping like bananas and cherries that were excellent when we shopped here a few days ago.
The "few items" that I went for wouldn't even all fit in the pack so I had to carry one of the bags. It started raining lightly as I left the grocery store and I could hear thunder in the distance. As I walked back, there were several places I could have stopped to get out of the rain if it got harder so I kept going. I did make it all the way back to the marina without getting too wet. I met Laura at the laundry and I had to take off the pack and sit for a bit. I think I was almost jogging with a 25 pound pack.
I checked back in the office and they did have our bill ready. Over the years I've increased my expectations with marina costs so would have been happy with about $2,000 total. I was thinking new prop - $1,000, haul-out - $500, dockage - $300, labor - $200. This didn't include getting our old propeller rebuilt ($400?) which I kind-of threw in at the end thinking if the new propeller caused problems, I needed something to fall back on. The bill total was $1,917. Ok. Here's my credit card and I'm out of here!
In checking the bill, this marina was very fair and I won't hesitate to come back. We had been at the dock for 5 days but only paid for the first night with the dockmaster. They didn't charge us any other nights dockage as they were working on our boat a few days. Most marinas will charge you "lay days" of dockage for the days they are not actually working on the boat. Only 2 of the 5 days did they actually work on Second Wind and didn't charge us for the other days so I was happy.
The new propeller was $982 (which is close to what they quoted me) and rebuilding our old prop was $212 (about 1/2 my estimate). The rest was hauling the boat out ($10/ft = $430), $200 labor, tax and a few other items I was good with.
Our plan was to leave the marina this afternoon and get through the Great Bridge Bridge and Lock plus the Gilmerton Bridge that doesn't open during rush hour. As we were bringing the laundry back to the boat, it started raining hard with thunder in the distance. It was warm (low 80s) and muggy. We had the A/C running and it felt pretty nice. We're going to stay another night (for free!).
I played the flute a bit in the cockpit (listening to the rain) then decided to come back downstairs because I was soaked with sweat from being in the muggy air. It was still raining. I looked at the clock and it was 5 minutes to 5pm. Cocktail time!
Laura made this cocktail the other day which was very refreshing and might be my summer drink this year. She calls it, "Laura's Raspberry Sangria"
She made one for each of us (mine is the big glass of course). You gotta try it. Here is the recipe for the big serving ....
1/2 cup white wine (Pino Grigio)
2 shots of raspberry Rum
1/2 cup ginger-ale
8-10 fresh raspberries (to soak up the alcohol and munch at the end)
couple ice cubers
New plans are to leave tomorrow morning at O-dark-30. I'll try to make the 6am bridge and lock then be down the Elizabeth River and into Cheaspake Bay by about 8-9am. Tidal currents will be working with us so, with the new prop, we'll be doing powerboat speeds. Hold On! (only kidding...)
Tomorrow is the only Chesapeake sailing day in the next 3-4. North winds will build in and we can't really sail or motor against them. We're hopping to at least make it to Fishing Bay tomorrow near Deltaville which is very protected and we can sit out just about any storms.
Check back and I'll let you know!
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