Sail Felix

"Men go b ack to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up." Henry David Thoreau This weekend my brother Mike and his daughters Megan and Brittany came down from the mountains to go sailing on Felix. The weather cooperated and we had a great weekend of sailing, fishing, and buzzing about in the dinghy. With overcast skies and 10-15 knot breezes we headed out of Jackson Creek Saturday morning and sailed into the Bay on a beam reach. Early on we caught a small bluefish while trolling a piece of squid, and sailed back and forth for a couple of hours before anchoring to spend a while bottom fishing. Mistakenly, we anchored by some charter boats, thinking they knew where the fish were, and got skunked. The girls were naturals, and seemed to take right to this boating stuff like it's in their genes. After returning to the dock and securing Felix back in her slip, we launched our inflatable with the 15 hp

We were in Urbanna yesterday having lunch, and our timing was perfect for watching a Power Catamaran being launched. Built by Felix the Catman , this behemoth is powered by twin 370 hp diesels and is over 50 feet long. Their shop is just around the corner from Dozier's marina where we were eating lunch, and they had to use two cranes to carefully, very carefully, lift it up and out into the water. Time to buy a lotte ry ticket......

Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll spend all day in a boat drinking beer. We've had a great 4 th , hanging with Wes and little Wes. Fishing, riding in boats, loitering on the sandbar in Jackson Creek, grilling out, and every other fun thing that we could think of. Tomorrow we head to Tappahannock for a little while to stay at my Mom's place and then back to Deltaville to get serious about work. The weather has been great, about 10 degrees cooler than it ever was in South Carolina, and we barely even need the air conditioner up here at night. It's great to be in a sailing area also, unlike Florida where 3 out of 4 boats are power boats, here the marinas and anchorages are full of masts and when you look out at the Bay during the afternoon all you see are sails. Sailboats, sailboats everywhere! Nice protected waters all around, we're looking forward to being able to take some day sails soon. For those who read this a

We made it here to Deltaville Tuesday evening, and it's been a whirlwind since then. This is just a short update, I'll tell more when I get some pictures. We've been hanging out every evening with my old friend Wes and his son Wes, who've been a great help getting us settled in. We've had a truck to use around town, and Wednesday we pulled into a slip at the Deltaville Marina on Jackson Creek . A nice place with a swimming pool, great facilities, close to town, a swimming pool, full service boat yard, screened patio with grill, and did I mention, a swimming pool! Lots more to write, but I'll leave it for after the weekend. It's crazy with festivities here this weekend, and in a one road town that means we need to get all of our errands done before the crowds come. We have to leave the marina and go anchor for the night of the 4 th because they are booked full that night, so I'll update more when we get back to the dock.