At Long Last

September 24

Question: How many marine mechanics does it take to change a light bulb? 

Answer: At $102 per hour and 4.58 hours, who cares how many?!

That is one DEAR anchor light! The housing was corroded and the screws had to be drilled out. It is uncanny how complicated everything seems to be. (Full disclosure: several light bulbs were replaced, the others being routine.)

We have left Deltaville just today, 3 weeks later than we had hoped. We tried to make lemonade from lemons, meeting some of the friendliest people you would ever hope to meet at the Deltaville Marine Museum, where the art of wooden boat building is kept alive. We biked through the beautiful little wooded sculpture garden behind the museum.  Drowning our frustration twice more over memorable dinners at The Office Bistro, we were grateful for use of the courtesy car. And we eked out enough of a wireless signal to stream “The Voice”in order to watch Girl Named Tom (the sibling band comprised of our Liechty nephews and niece) compete. We have only positive regard for the wonderful crew at Zimmerman Marine. Nothing they did was “simple.” They serviced the engines and replaced pumps and hoses and clamps and connectors. They fixed 4 or 5 leaks of a variety of fluids and of various levels of concern and repaired gel coat. And then, of course, they reinvented the mechanism which operates the davits, the arms that lift and lower our dinghy to and from the water—the “davit motors.” (As great as the guys were, as creative the fix, the dinghy rides lower and it’s not quite right yet.) The mechanics were professional in every way, never alluding to the fact that our complications were wreaking havoc on their schedules for other boats awaiting work. 

Washington DC is our next port of call. Our passage out of the Rappahannock River, ducking out on the big water of the Chesapeake Bay, and tucking back in at the Potomac River was rough, with a headwind from the the north at 18 mph and an opposing current. We knew we would have 2-3 foot swells and white caps for a few hours—and were we not quite so stir crazy, we would have waited one more day. Even with delaying departure until noon, it was the sort of passage in which you dared not take a drink of anything unless you were willing to wear it the rest of the day. We crabbed one way and then the other to avoid meeting the waves head on, until the Potomac offered protection from that fierce north wind.

The daylight is markedly shorter with the arrival of autumn, pressing us to stop for the night earlier than we would otherwise have chosen, still 90 miles from D.C. We dropped anchor tonight at sunset in beautiful little Herring Creek. I stop to gaze up at the sparkling lens of our anchor light, admiring the bright, cheerful bulb, telling other boaters that we are here. I shake my head at the incredulity of what I thought before was a “simple” necessity.