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.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is . - Anonymous We left Broad Creek on the North River two days ago and made the slog straight into North winds up the Currituck Sound. The passage was fairly smooth because the winds were light, and we were looking forward to a peaceful night in Pungo Ferry to prepare for the 5 draw bridges and one lock on the way through Norfolk. Unfortunately, there are no good anchorages in Pungo Ferry, and the Marina is now closed. I think there were once anchorages in Pungo , because the NOAA charts show several deep areas and Skipper Bob's Guide mentions a couple of places. We tried them all. Same old story that we've seen up and down the waterway. Places that are charted at 10 or 16 feet of water have less than 6 and we end up hard reversing to get ourselves back out. We must have tried 4 or 5 places around there that looked good on the charts but had no water, and finally ended up hanging our butt...

A Human Being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert Heinlein Yesterday's sail up the Alligator River and across the Albermarle Sound was a glorious one. Captain Clyde would have been proud; as soon as we entered into the Alligator we shut down the engine and left it off all day except for the short transit through the Alligator River Swing Bridge. Through the morning we made 6-7 knots while we had a good wind forward of the beam, falling off to 4-5 when we turned off of the wind and it started to lighten. I have some great video of Felix under sail that I was planning to post today, but thanks to the 'new and improved'...

I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves. - Jerry Garcia First, thanks to everyone for the comments and emails about deadheads. Partially submerged logs, and the 20 mile long Pungo -Alligator River canal was littered with them. We passed through there this afternoon and saw 3 of them like in this photo that were smack in the middle of the channel, and another 4 or 5 off to the side of the channel. Fortunately when you're travelling at 6 mph these things are easy to spot. Now I need to back up. Yesterday we had a great sail and motorsail from Oriental up the Neuse River and Pamlico River to Belhaven . Belhaven is becoming one of our favorite places. We had stopped there 14 years ago and loved it, this time we learned to love it even more. To begin with the harbor is excellent with a deep well marked channel leading into a huge, well protected...