Onward (and Backward)

We spent five days at Reg and Jetty's house doing some preparatory work on Sirius and provisioning for the trip ahead. A great time to get to know them better. Reg and I served together aboard the US Coast Guard Cutter Sweetbriar over 45 years ago, lost contact, and lived the larger part of a whole lifetime before reconnecting when I came across the previously linked article about the building of Rainbow. I can't say I recognized the "Old Man" who I saw in the photos, but there was no mistaking his passion for designing and building a sailing craft of that caliber. 

Nina got busy making memory foam pillow toppers for our V-berth on the boat. No pipe-frame / canvas berths for us. As I write this we are aboard Sirius in Great Bridge Virginia and she is stitching away on a Bimini type cover to keep the cabin cooler in the tropics. 

We got underway last Wed (11/19) with the weather forcast promising some favorable though very cold winds. The run to Deltaville was made halfway under sail and the last half using the iron Genoa as the wind had backed around to hit us on the nose. A layover day in Deltaville to get a couple of forgotten supplies and to allow the winds to become more favorable. Set sail Fri am with perfect westerlies of about 15 knots. Throughout  the day the direction held steady and speed gradually increased to 20 to 25 knots. Sirius stood up nicely under full sail to the increased wind speed and made a steady 6+ knots. We pulled in to the Elizabeth River at Norfolk, Va and tied up for the night in Portsmouth, Va. We decided to get turkey and all the other fixin's for Thanksgiving dinner as it appears that we will be in the middle of nowhere on T'giving day. 

Passing under a lift bridge leaving Norfolk. 

Next night we anchored in Blackwater Creek. A tight squeeze getting into that anchorage as Sirius draws 4 feet and our depth sounder recorded 4 feet depth on the way in. Such a peaceful spot though. 

Anchorage in Blackwater Creek. 

On the way we had to share a very narrow channel with a pretty large tug and barge. 

Here we were stopped and pulled over almost among the cypress stumps. 

Got up very early the next morning planning a long leg including crossing Albemarle Sound while the weather was favorable. Started the engine, made preparations and pulled the anchor at which point the engine quit. Diesel engines normally just keep on running and the silence in the early calm of the anchorage was...well, quiet. Seems that when a diesel quits it is usually something clogging the fuel system or air in the system which is effectively the same thing. I exhausted my limited bag of diesel mechanics tricks and eventually (with head hung appropriately low), called BoatUS for a tow. The last couple of years we have taken out towing insurance, but this is the first time to use it. The tow guy said that we have unlimited towing so he would tow us wherever we wanted to go. We suppressed telling him that Florida would be good and, instead decided on a marina 18 miles back the way we had come that had diesel repair service. 

At the repair place, the highly paid mechanic kept doing what I had already done, bleeding the air out of the system after which the engine would run for 5-10 minutes then die. Eventually after 5 hours of high pay, he discovered air leaking in at one of the screw-in plugs in the primary fuel filter. This seems to fix the problem so we'll be off again at first light in the morning. Next time I will try longer and harder to be the successful and highly paid mechanic.