Friday, August 03, 2007

A Week on the Corrotoman and Rappahannock Rivers

Our last week was fantastic. It's always great to have enthusiastic adults, but to have enthusiastic kids is the best. The week started with lots of rain and we got underway late on Monday, but caught some good wind several miles downriver and rode to Deltaville on it. Tuesday the wind came strong straight out of the south, so instead of the familiar swimming hole we put her head east and set out across the Chesapeake. We got pretty far, a bit better than halfway, about 11 miles out, far enough to have nearly sunk the land behind us and just raised the land before us. I had programmed a waypoint called Bikini Island on the GPS, located somewhere near our line of travel, to keep my crew interested, but I cautioned them that only the pure of heart could see it. It's probably good they didn't take me seriously. Anyone promising real bikinis to teenage boys had better deliver.

And all this time I'm starting the Perkins with a hammer. Every time that engine had to start, I had to use the hammer. It was yer basic sollenoid failure, the telltale click at the turn of the key and then nothing. Batteries good, fuel tanks filled. No grinding, just a click. But of course anyone who's been around diesel engines knows the trick of arcing the sollenoid with a piece of metal. Just line the metal along the two critical contacts and whoosh! Sparks fly out, the air crackles with electric fire. But then the machine engages and the motor starts. For three weeks I'm doing this, pressing the head of the hammer between the two contacts. My crew is calling it the Hammer of Life, and take pictures of it. It is one severely lacerated hammer. Meanwhile, two separate shops are bloodhounding a new starter for me.

Wednesday sailed to Urbanna, our favorite port. Here the kids lit out immediately for the ice cream shop, where, being scouts, they enjoy a 10 percent discount. Some go to the pool in town where, being scouts, they get in free. A few trudge all the way to the grocery store on Virginia Street, where they buy a truly astonishing amount of sugar in the form of Hershey's cookies, Little Debbie Snack Cakes, Mountain Dew, many kinds of ice cream and of course candy bars. That's just the sugar. The salt comes in its own varieties. The parents hit the Virginia Street Cafe and struggle heroically not to order a dozen cold ones. At night, a funny movie in the air conditioned captain's lounge.

Thursday, we arrive at Yankee Point Marina on the north side of the Corrotoman River, a tributary of the Rappahannock--and my starter has arrived before me! Another movie at night and all our remaining food for dinner: chicken, pork chops, peas and carrots, flour tortillas, steak strips, shredded cheese--anything we can't save till next week, which is almost everything. Friday morning after Brian installs the starter we can't resist starting the engine several times just for the joy of it. Everyone agrees the new starter speaks in an earnest and confident tone.

But we only need to use it twice. Once to get us off the dock and then again to put us into the slip at Bayport. Between those two uses we sail, we sail, mostly with the spinnaker, mile upon mile, the great sail billowing colorfully overhead and the Morgan chasing after it like love itself, the scouts taking turns flying behind us on the water by hanging on to the swim ladder. One of the scouts loses his shorts to the rushing water--I warned them--but manages to keep on his boxers. We sail 10 miles to Bayport and then a good two miles beyond, making the day last as long as we can.

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