05/02/11
Our plan for the next 6 months while waiting out the hurricane season was to sail the Chesapeake including stops in Washington DC and Annapolis, maybe go up the coast as far as Maine and make our way back down to Virginia via New York - something like that - it doesn't really matter now because reality was very different.......
Our first anchorage in Virginia along the Chesapeake was Deltaville - a protected anchorage alongside a beautiful country town - we soon found out that beauty is not everything - with no public transport - not even a taxi and with the nearest shops being further than walking distance, provisioning White Rose became problematic. Our diesel engine "Mr Engine,Sir" was having problems which stumped us - high oil pressure!! We really needed a spot to stop with a marine and hardware store nearby. We emailed around trying to find a marina with reasonable dockage fees - no such thing in the Chesapeake apparently.
05/08/11
36 50.44 N 76 19.95 W
Eventually we decided upon Tidewater Yacht Marina in Portsmouth and headed back the way we had come - carefully and slowly to keep the oil pressure gauge happy !!! As it turns out we could not have chosen a better spot - we were there for 6 months and loved every minute of it. Within days we became part of the scenery and the community. Our next door neighbor, Dickinson on "The Ninth Wave" became my adviser and friend. Dickinson showed amazing patience with our constant boat jobs which at times included noisy electrical tools and dust - all I needed to add would have been loud music and I think he may have blown a gasket - as it was he was understanding and encouraging.
We spent every Saturday morning at the local pub for breakfast. We were thoroughly entertained by the friendly bickering of our new friends who discussed all the usual no go subjects of religion and politics with great enthusiasm. Don and I gorged ourselves with a breakfast that only Americans can produce - sausages, eggs, pancakes, grits, and the list goes on - the serves were so large that Don and I always shared one between both of us and at times could not finish it - we found we could not eat lunch and only a small token dinner - so good was breakfast - nothing like a good serving of starch, fat, cholesterol and sugar to keep you going all day.
Portsmouth is simply beautiful, it has an "Old Town" section with the most amazing very old colonial homes - some for sale at very inexpensive prices for 3 stories !! It has its bad areas where we are warned not to go walking at night (black neighborhoods mainly) there is still a lot of racial problems here - Don and I are always the only whites on the buses and have lots of fun talking to the African-Americans, listening to them banter or sing - they are a happy lot and they find us amusing. The children are simply gorgeous, usually shy with fuzzy black hair that would be perfect for a duster - usually done in tiny little ponytails with bright bands - they are so cute.
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