Pushing South

So I was a few days late getting back to the boat, but we are off again. I arrived back in Virginia on Sunday night, and after a good meal with Steven and Jodi, it was back to the boat as a complete family for the first time in 5 weeks!!!

Monday was used to get a few last minute projects out of the way, including the installation of our new water heater (cold showers just not going to cut it).

We said our good-byes with a special thanks to everyone at Olversons!! Steven, Jodi, Jacob, Beverly-Anne, Fred and Cass, and of course Uncle Pete really made the place feel like a second home. We have already threatened to return in the spring!

Thanks of course to our old (old meaning we have known them for awhile ;-) friends Bobbie and Gord. Without them we never would have wound up in Lottsburg!!

So the push begins, yesterday we put around 50 miles under our keels and spent the night anchored in Horn Harbour http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=37.36528,-76.271768&spn=0.017157,0.042186&t=h&z=15. Another great spot for our shallow draft catamaran, we saw less than 5' of water depth a few times coming in off the Bay.

It was a pretty breezy night, gusts over 30kts, but we all slept great. The forecast was not looking good for Wednesday, 4-6' seas and 20kts gusting to 25kts. We got underway around 0900hrs, the wind and seas weren't much of a concern, and we made it to Norfolk by around 1630hrs. Below is a pic as we motored down "Carrier Alley". The aircraft carrier "Harry Truman" was there. 6200 crew, 80 aircraft, cost of $4.5 billion , range of 3,200,000 miles on 4 nuclear reactors!!

We are sharing the anchorage at Hospital Point http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=36.844358,-76.29962&spn=0.004319,0.010546&z=17 with 8 other boats, 5 of which are from Canada (and one, another Gemini, we saw in the 1000 Islands last summer).

After a nice supper, we had another family game of Sorry (I continue to kick butt in the standings!!!), then read another chapter of Farley Mowats "The Boat Who Wouldn't Float".

We also had hot showers onboard Charlotte-Ann for the first time.

Kids are in bed, Lisa and I are having a glass of wine (Merlot Box-o-Vino). We have another early start tomorrow, hopefully we will get all the way through the Dismal Swamp.