{"id":4528,"date":"2015-05-13T18:45:09","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T18:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=4528"},"modified":"2015-05-13T18:45:09","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T18:45:09","slug":"inch-by-inch-toward-hampton-va","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=4528","title":{"rendered":"Inch by inch, toward Hampton VA."},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Wednesday afternoon and we are motoring SLOWLY up the ICW toward Hampton VA.\u00a0\u00a0 The scenery here is pretty primeval and there isn\u2019t a home for miles. \u00a0 However, millions of\u00a0mosquitoes love it here, a factor that I neglected to prepare for when we went to sleep last night. \u00a0The wind died down before dawn and we woke up to dozens , perhaps hundreds, making a feast out of us. \u00a0Not a great way to begin the day. \u00a0Did I mention that it was 04:00 when we realized that we were not alone? \u00a0I was killing the stragglers for hours.\u00a0\u00a0I won’t make the same mistake twice. \u00a0 Well, not tonight at least.\u00a0\"\"<\/a>Along the way we are passed by periodically by faster boats in the flotilla of \u201csnow birds\u201d heading north.<\/span>\"\"<\/a>With about two days between us and Hampton, we should be there in time to jump out when the wind shifts back to a more southerly direction, predicted to be as early as Thursday night.\u00a0 Once the wind shifts we should be able to sail to CT with a good following wind.\u00a0 Fingers crossed that it works out.\u00a0 However, if we don\u2019t have enough wind, we will just fire up the \u201ciron wind\u201d and motor the whole way.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We carry plenty of fuel and I will be sure to fill up prior to heading out.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we cover the miles, a number of fairly minor things have been causing problems.\u00a0 I expected this as it\u2019s nearly impossible to pick up on all the details in a boat survey, no matter how carefully we went over everything. \u00a0\u00a0For example, the forward macerator pump that empties the holding tank needs to be primed sometimes before it will empty the tank if it isn’t used regularly.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I didn\u2019t know this so when I tried to use it, I let it run too long and burned out the impeller and pump.\u00a0 Good news, there was a spare on board. \u00a0All better now.<\/p>\n

Also, the speedo unit that measures the boat\u2019s speed through the water decided to crap out today. \u00a0I noticed that it seemed to be giving some odd readings while we were offshore cor the last few days so I calibrated it to take out the error in the reading, which was clearly not correct.\u00a0 It seemed to work yesterday but today the unit didn\u2019t work at all and showed a blank screen when I turned everything 0n for the day.<\/p>\n

I guess that goes with the territory as this is a complex boat and besides, there are more than a dozen instruments and repeaters on the boat so I suppose that it\u2019s only natural that something will crap out from time to time.\u00a0 But wait, there\u2019s more.<\/p>\n

The owner mentioned that the engine hour readout sometimes doesn\u2019t work \u00a0when you first turn on the engine and yet was still counting hours of run time for the motor.\u00a0 The day of the survey it was working fine.\u00a0 \u00a0Alas, it must have been on it\u2019s best behavior as it hasn\u2019t turned on for the last two days.\u00a0 I guess I should have made a bigger deal about it.\u00a0 Oh well, hope it doesn\u2019t cost too much to replace.<\/p>\n

Well, that covers it for now and I suppose some little \u201chitches\u201d are to be expected.\u00a0\u00a0 I will try not to think about all of those details for now.\u00a0 The good news is that a lot more is working than isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

On a more positive note, today I noticed that there were some photos on my camera that I had taken over the last week and had forgotten to download.\u00a0\u00a0 Just for fun, a few of the more interesting ones.<\/p>\n

There is a lot of military air traffic as we worked our way up the waterway with copters and jets nearly constantly in view. \u00a0This little helicopter came very close to us.\u00a0 Jim thought that it was military. \u00a0I sure hope that he was wearing his seat-belt.\u00a0\"\"<\/a>I mentioned in my last post that we caught a tuna.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a photo of it as it came up to be landed.\u00a0 Looks pretty big?\u00a0 Not really but a nice “action” shot, never the less.\"\"<\/a><\/span>And, I can\u2019t believe that I forgot about our turtle encounter.\u00a0 We passed quite a few while we were offshore.\u00a0 This one had a seabird taking a rest on it\u2019s back.\"\"<\/a><\/span>After a bit, he poked his head up to see who was coming by as if to say, \u201chey you bud, I was sleeping\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019d guess that this turtle was nearly 4\u2019 across.\"\"<\/a><\/span>I sure hope that the wind will turn as planned so I won\u2019t have to worry about replacing crew that runs out of \u201caway time\u201d.\u00a0 Besides, Brenda tells me that the lawn needs to be cut.\u00a0 It had better not grow much more before I get home next week.<\/span><\/p>\n

For now, I\u2019ll have to think \u201cgrass stunting\u201d thoughts .\u00a0 Given that our run north seems to be progressing about as fast as \u201cwatching grass grow\u201d, I shouldn’t have any trouble with that line of thinking.<\/p>\n

So, for now, inching toward Hampton and home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Wednesday afternoon and we are motoring SLOWLY up the ICW toward Hampton VA.\u00a0\u00a0 The scenery here is pretty primeval and there isn\u2019t a home for miles. \u00a0 However, millions of\u00a0mosquitoes love it here, a factor that I neglected to prepare for when we went to sleep last night. \u00a0The wind died down before dawn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4535,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4528\/revisions\/4535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}