October 21 23 Cape Henry to Yorktown and Two Laydays There 23 miles

The crossing was done by motor, all the way, without raising any sails, less than five hours. The wind was in our face but only five knots true, not enough to raise any waves. The only obstacle was this guy,

last seen in the sunset on the horizon from Cape Charles, who lay on anchor right on our course across the Bay. I caused another problem by accidentally turning off autopilot while trying to turn on the cockpit radio, which gave Lene a scare. The York River is wide and deep almost to its shores. We entered against the tide slowing us somewhat.

Yorktown County government runs the modern efficient Riverwalk Landing Marina here, which we visited in 2006 and 2012. We asked about staying on the outward side of the marinas floating dock (so easy to get on and off) but the friendly dock master said: "No way am I putting you there!" He was right. Both days we were here the wind howled, the river was filled with large whitecaps and the large excursion schooner, "Alliance", tied up on the opposite side of the dock from us, pitched up and down like crazy.

In fact I had planned to move to our next port on our second day here, and with the strong wind at our back and then at our side, we could have made it. But Lene and the kitties have had enough rough rides for a while and there is much here to amuse us.

The reasons we keep coming back to Yorktown is that our friends, Stan and Carol, live in nearby Williamsburg. I met Stan up at Cornell 52 years ago; he has been teaching at William and Mary for the last 36 years. They are such wonderful hosts and lend us their car, though which we provisioned and visited barbers and the drug store as well. They also shared with us two delicious home cooked meals, we took them to a French restaurant and we had mango-blueberry pancakes aboard with them and also did some sight seeing. Their home is decorated with the Carnival glass that Stan collects and the imaginative quilts that Carol makes.

I visited the Watermans Museum, located immediately adjacent to the marina, which is at the river side immediately below the cliffs where General Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington, ending our Revolutionary War. Cornwallis surrendered after the French fleet under DeGrasse defeated the fleet of British ships containing the reinforcements that Cornwallis needed. The museum is housed in a large plantation house that was donated and transported to this site from the other side of the river on a large barge. Watermen are defined as anyone who makes his or her living on the water. As amateurs, Lene and I are not watermen. The battle of the Capes, which led to the end of our revolution is portrayed, as are piracy, fishing and shell fishing and wooden boat manufacture and repair. Here is the museums model of a fish trap,

also called a pole net. These run for considerable distances in an east-west orientation in the Bay. About half the fish that are brought up against it by the flowing tides will swim toward the trap and can be harvested periodically from the pen at the right. These traps are one reason to not sail in the Chesapeake at night. We came too close to one of them a few days ago, before turning away.  Running into this would likely damage both trap and boat.

I learned that a certain local Pirate, when captured and convicted in England, was fined 1000 pounds by the crown to be used to create a new school in Virginia, William and Mary. Thus unlike Harvard and Yale, which were funded largely on the basis of the profits of the slave trade, William and Marys founding moneys were the profits of piracy. I had only 90 minutes there and two docents latched onto me. Phil (wearing a "Tin Can Navy" hat) took care of me inside, followed by Bubba who filled my head with knowledge once I proceeded outside to the wooden boat sheds. Clearly, these knowledgeable gentlemen would have talked my ears off for several hours more if I had more time, which I would have enjoyed.

The next day, Carol took me to DeWitt Wallace and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Museums of Art in Colonial Williamsburg, where I saw a lot of beautiful old quilts and wooden furniture, but found nothing  nautical to report to you.

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Nov 1 5 zero miles Five More Laydays in Oriental

We end up spending eight nights here. Thats the way it is in shipyards. It takes longer and costs more than expected.  Deatons however, is a very fine yard. Small but bustling with activity, with friendly competent and helpful staff, free electric which we used to warm the boat through our heat exchanger on the cold nights, and a small lounge with a washer dryer $3.50 per load), good shower, TV and a small desk and sofa. We really became friends with the staff who all cheered the news when Witty was found. John Deaton and his wife, Karen have owned and operated the place with service manager and master teacher Greg, their son Steve, Rita, who was the most helpful about Witty and maybe about 20 -30 other folks.  We had business and they let us fax letters and photocopy others -- no charge.
And despite the gloom of Wittys potential demise, or perhaps because of it (and after his return) work on the boat (and life) went on.
Our friends, Bill and Sando,

saw how ratty looking our small jib sheet had become and gave us a new one, from his old Saga, which had been offered for sale in a consignment store. A very valuable gift. I whipped its new ends when I cut it into two pieces to serve as the sheet and as a line to better secure the dink. Bill also taught me a better placement for the shackle at the clew of the sheet and Lene helped me pull the new line through its under the deck channel with a snake.
 I saw that Oriental has a dealer for AB Inflatable dinghys and scored a valve cover for ours and I used electrical tape to enlarge the washer and thereby make a better fit for the air pump nozzle to inflate our dink. I tried to change the zinc in the refrigerator unit but needed the yards help when the old zinc twisted off in its holder (a new brass holder at $7.50 was a lot cheaper than the labor needed to melt the zinc out of the old one). Lene ordered the electronic versions of Waterways Cruising Guides to the Intercoastal by Mark Doyle. I polished and waxed the stainless steel of the bowsprit and bow pulpit and cleaned out the bilge. This in addition to overseeing/assisting the yards workers who hauled the boat two more times, replaced the lip of the Strong Seal (dripless stuffing box) in an attempt to stop the leak, aligned the prop shaft with the engine by shifting the engine on its mounts, and took ILENE out for a test drive which shows that we have good alignment --but we still have a leak, The cause this time is believed to be a distorted plastic disc bolted with four bolts to the transmission and four more to the shaft. It is plastic so it will shatter to prevent harm to the transmission if we hit something. Our choices were to get a replacement disc, or one of steel to take up the space, or get a new longer propeller shaft so no such spacer would be needed. We chose option A, and it is being sent to friends in Florida for me to try to install there.

But it was not all boat work and Witty worry. We had a tour of Bill and Sandos big new 45 foot dual engine DeFever trawler, named Lucille, like her predecessor, their Saga.

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Bill loves that it has easy access at dock level from the stern, does not have an open fly bridge (which he would not use), and has wide, safe, covered, exterior passageways. He is a perfectionist about his boats, keeping them pristine and making many improvements for comfort, safety and convenience. A minor example of these is the port side rear view mirror shown in the first photograph. M/V Lucille was in Maine this past summer and we hope to join Bill and Sando there in the summer of  16. I continue to very much admire Bills gentle, intelligent advice over the years and Lene says he has the best sense of humor.  He prefers to make longer off-shore passages to get to the desired cruising grounds more quickly, a very useful philosophy as we head south trying to get where it is warm before it gets too cold up here after a delay of a week.

Then, we had drinks and snacks at their lovely spacious modern home, raised about five feet above their lawn, which reaches to to the seawall,
which in turn is five feet more above sea level, with a commanding view of the Neuse River and all the boats that necessarily traverse it on the ICW. All told we enjoyed three dinners out with them, at half the local eateries, "M and Ms," "The Silos" which is built in two connected silos and "Toucan", and two breakfasts with them aboard ILENE.

And I played with the blog and determined that on the ten separate days that we made passages in October since we left Annapolis on October 12, we totaled 351 miles -- compared to the 268 we made in less than 48 hours from the Harlem to Annapolis on October 8-10. We went shopping for groceries several times and took Witty to the vet. Lene has a cold and visited a local emergency medical place and the Walmarts pharmacy. I try to not patronize Walmart whose owners get rich by paying their staff so little that we taxpayers subsidize them through food stamps etc.  But here we shopped at their store which was one of the places that put up a the lost kitty poster.

People in Orient are friendly and honest. The Yard leaves the keys to two of its old vehicles with a signup sheet for use by residents. I put some gas in the tank. I asked the man in the chandlery if I could return the valve cover if it didnt fit. He said: "Dont pay me now: come back and pay me if it fits". When I took our propane tank for a refill, the hardware store man said it was a flat service fee for filling, that the tank seemed 3/4 full and he couldnt charge me $12 for only $3 worth of gas. While walking around on the afternoon after the big storm, I saw folks gathering pecans that had fallen off of trees during the storm. Later I stooped to pick one up and Lee gave me a bag of them from her tree and invited me into her house to meet her husband Billy and their family, who were eating their dinner. They relocated here about a month ago from Orange County, NY. See, it doesnt take long here for the friendliness habit to set in.

I visited the Oriental Historical Museum and took most of one of their walking tours, past the towns historic houses. Oriental was a poor town founded in the late 1870s by hard working fishermen and farmers. This house, with its metal roof, like many of them, was the home of a prominent citizen in its day and is still very well maintained.

Mr. Midyette was the founder. When the post office was established here in the 1870s a name was needed. Mrs. Midyette thought of the steamer "Oriental," which had been wrecked (without loss of life) while carrying people and property for the US government during the Civil War in 1862. This wreck was on the outer banks, about 30 miles from here but Mrs. Midyette suggested the name and it has been so ever since. The name gives rise to the Asian theme including dragons. Here is a view from the middle of Broad Street, also known as Route 55, the main drag, looking west.

 I took a shot looking the other way, which was equally devoid of activity. You can get the idea that traffic jams are the not a big problem in this town. I did not get the full picture when I asked about population. The lovely, dedicated and knowledgeable volunteer at the museum told me it was 750. The Census Bureau reported 900 in 2010. But Im thinking both omitted the people who live in newer larger homes outside, but have Oriental mailing addresses, such as our friends, Bill and Sando. The town still has fishing but its farming gave way to lumber mills which were located where the public dock is now and from which I took this picture of the 1970s era bridge, which replaced the very much narrower wooden bridge of the depression era.
There are several  marinas on this side, the upstream side of the bridge, but not for us, because the bridge height is 55 feet.

 After the mills were shuttered the town was rescued by the boating community. 2700 boats is a lot of boats for what is still a very small town. I believe that much of the money in town nowadays comes from folks who retire here to live with their boats in a moderately warm place.
We plan to stop here again on our return trip back home.

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