36°50′28″ N 76°17′29″ W

July 23 – Tidewater Marina, Portsmouth VA

Today (Wednesday) we stayed at the marina & worked on a few maintenance issues.

First on the agenda were the heads 😝

There is a head in each cabin but both of them stopped working properly after we left Jacksonville. They would flush away anything that was in the bowl but could not bring in water to assist with the flushing, so we had to keep bottles of tap water handy to pour into the bowl to make the toilet flush into the holding tank.

The flushing procedure is pretty simple, just pull the handle up & down 4 or 5 times, but it doesn’t take much to put the toilet out of action.

After disassembling the hand pump mechanism I found one the little flapper valves in the forward head was broken right off & the one in the aft head was so corroded that it would not seal the (flushing) water intake valve properly. (circled in red in the photo below)

I purchased two new repair kits from the Marina store & after spending only about 10 minutes installing the new parts both toilets are now back in action! Hopefully they will continue to work properly until we get home.

This winter I intend to replace these toilets with new electric flush/macerator toilets – similar to what you find on airplanes. I had them on the Nauticat & they worked great!

Next on the job list was an engine oil change. My maintenance practice is to change the oil & filter after every 100 hours of operation.

The engine has a special hand pump on it that you use to pump the oil out of the crankcase. It doesn’t pump very much with each stroke & the engine holds almost 16 liters of oil so I had a pretty good case of tennis elbow after that job was done!

This stuff costs US $25.00 a jug so routine engine service is pricey. However, it’s money well spent & my philosophy is “that if I look after the engine then the engine will look after me!”

Now we are all set to cast off our lines early Thursday morning & head towards the upper end of the Chesapeake Bay.

Cheers!

36°50′54″ N 76°17′41″ W

USS Wisconsin – Norfolk VA

Today we took the (10 minute ride) pedestrian water ferry from Portsmouth across the Elizabeth River to downtown Norfolk.

The ferry lands in downtown Norfolk, right in the middle of all the action & is only a few steps away from the battleship USS Wisconsin, which is now permanently berthed as a floating museum.

The battleship is supported by an excellent discovery center & maritime museum.

Ed & I opted for the full visitor experience & signed up for the VIP tour package which included guided tours of the command centers & the engineering sections of the ship that were not accessible with “only” the general admission fee.

As VIPs we saw all the cool spots behind the scenes. The Captain’s private head has a red light for night vision & even has a hotline phone to the President! As our tour guide said, when the President calls, you answer right away – no matter what you are doing!

Our guide also took us into the gun & missile firing control center where we experienced a simulated attack on the ship. This was a really neat experience.

After the command center tour we saw the engine rooms & engineering sections below decks.

I cannot imagine what it must have been like when the ship was under way & in battle.

It was also very cool to see the main engine control center where the engineer responded to speed & direction commands from the helm, which was several decks above the engine room.

The guides had many great stories about navy life on board this ship. If you are ever in the Norfolk area then touring the USS Wisconsin should be at the top of your list of things to see & do.

Today we toured a battleship. Tomorrow I do battle with a couple of malfunctioning heads (toilets) on board my ship. Ahhh, the cruising can be so glamorous!

Cheers!

36°50′28″ N 76°17′29″ W

July 23 – Tidewater Marina, Portsmouth VA

The photo above shows the view of downtown Norfolk last night from our flybridge while docked at the marina in Portsmouth.

We are now at mile “0” of the ICW. Norfolk/Portsmouth is recognized as the beginning of the inland route to Florida. Since leaving Jacksonville FL on July 1 we have travelled 740 miles!

We left Coinjock at 7:45 yesterday morning (July23) & arrived at the marina here in Portsmouth at 4:00pm. We had to wait over an hour for two bridge openings so we would have made a bit better time if not for those delays. Our trip was pretty smooth compared to the day before.

We saw lots of Ospreys in their nests as we motored past the port & starboard navigation markers in the channels.

The birds did not like us getting too close & would give out warning cries as we approached each marker. Then they would quiet down right after the back end of our boat passed the marker.

There was one lock on the route to Norfolk. We were the only boat to go through heading North. The lock lowered our level by about two feet.

Yesterday I started flying the Goderich Yacht Club burgee on the bow – figured the US Navy boats ahead in Norfolk would appreciate knowing what club I belong to 😉

Before we reached the downtown areas of Portsmouth & Norfolk we passed through a very heavily industrialized area. We passed under two gigantic railway lift bridges that looked like the gates to the city.

A little further on we saw several navy ships undergoing refits.

Today we will try to take a tour of one or two of the “retired” ships that are docked in the downtown area & accessible to the general public.

We plan to stay in Norfolk for 2-3 days, resting up, being tourists & doing some shopping & minor repairs to the boat.

This morning was a real treat for us as the temperature has dropped to much more tolerable levels. I’m actually a bit chilly & wearing my fleece jacket while having my morning coffee. Ed is a bit heartier than me.

Cheers!

36°20′53″ N 75°56′57″ W

Coinjock Marina

We left the Alligator River Marina at 7:30am & headed for the Albemarle Sound.

The sunrise was beautiful but the wind was predicted to be strong while we were crossing the sound & that made for a rough crossing.

The wind was coming across our port side & it was bringing up 1-2 foot high whitecaps that caused a great deal of side to side rocking & rolling for us for the next 4 hours.

Most of the pantry shelves managed to empty themselves onto the galley floor but thankfully nothing got broken. However, there was one heck of a mess to clean up!

Ed did a yeoman’s job steering through the rough water while I kept the galley secured. This went on until we finally entered the canal on the other side of the sound & the the waves were gone.

We arrived at Coinjock Marina at 12:30 noon – a pretty short journey time-wise but very physically tiring.

Ed & I celebrated our arrival with a cold beer on the flybridge.

I was looking forward to a lazy afternoon when I heard the bilge pump running continuously in the engine compartment. Not a good sign.

I opened up the floorboards & started to investigate. Needless to say, the bilge pump is located in a spot that is not at all easy to get at.

Turns out that the float that starts & stops the bilge pump would rise high enough to start the pump but it would not go down far enough to turn the pump off when the bilge was empty!

I cleaned up the switch & the sump area where it is installed but it would still not shut off automatically. This concerned me because there was no electric backup if the pump just continued running until it burned itself out. There is a manual bilge pump on board but it’s not practical to rely on it for intermittent use.

Even after cleaning the float switch area the pump would not shut off reliably. It just needed a tiny bit extra weight because just the gentlest touch would shut the pump off.

I took a penny, dabbed one side of it with Goop & stuck it on the top of the float switch. Voila! Problem solved! I watch the pump run through 4 cycles & it worked perfectly! Now on to the next problem……

We have a leaky connection on one of the plumbing hot water lines in the engine compartment. The connection was put together incorrectly & it constantly leaks even when the pressure pump is off – to the point where we have to fill one of the fresh water holding tanks at least every other day. I managed to get the fitting apart & after a lot of sweating (& more than a few choice words) I managed to get it back together properly & the leak finally stopped. Hopefully that will be the end of that problem.

So, instead of having 3 or 4 hours to relax, the time was used to be a mechanic/plumber. Such is life for an old goat on an old boat!

We got cleaned up & headed to the marina restaurant. The place was packed but we managed to get a table.

When we got back we found that we had a new neighbor behind us on the dock.

Our little trawler continues to run with the big dogs!

Cheers!

35°54′2″ N 76°1′28″ W

We are now docked at the Alligator River Marina which adjacent to the highway that leads from the mainland to Kill Devil Hills & Kitty Hawk.

It would have been interesting to get over to Kitty Hawk but the boating logistics are just too complicated for this particular trip.

We left Belhaven this morning at 6:45am & arrived at the marina at 2:30pm. It was another very hot day with little wind to cool us.

For the first 4 hours of the trip we followed the Alligator River Canal, which is an engineered waterway that is 20 miles long & straight as an arrow. The photo below shows our view for virtually the entire time we were in the canal.

At the north end of the canal the Alligator River opens up to be several miles wide but the navigation channel is still only about 200 meters wide & it quickly gets very shallow on either side. We could not let our attention stray too long or we might run aground.

It was pretty hot when we docked & there was still no wind. Thankfully the marina has a comfortable air conditioned boater’s lounge with a large screen TV so we mixed some cool drinks to celebrate our arrival & retreated to the lounge for a few hours.

The marina also has a gas station on the highway & a restaurant so we decided to skip cooking dinner & had a great southern BBQ pulled pork dinner with fried okra & hush puppies! It sure beat eating leftovers from our galley!

We are now only 85 miles from Norfolk, VA & “Mile 0”, at the north end of the ICW. Tomorrow we will cross the Albemarle Sound – where our route will be about 14 miles across open water & then we enter the next series of rivers & canals that are sheltered by the barrier islands. Hopefully we will have some pleasant ocean breezes to help keep us cool.

Cheers!