Lay days

We’re still at anchor across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk, VA. The water front is quite spectacular. It’s lit up like Disney World; it’s a nice change for us.

Lay day doesn’t mean day off on Escape Velocity. We’ve finally pulled the trigger on the non-functioning hydraulic ram and decided to send it to the B&G Ram Guru in RI found by Craig on Anything Goes. After pulling the beast out from under our berth and wrapping it a plastic bag–it’s about 3′ long–into the dinghy it goes, along with the bikes and bike gear and us.

As we unhooked from EV one of the shackles that lifts the dinghy broke. This is the second one. We had a replacement for the first one but now we have to find a store nearby where we can find another one.

The throttle cable on the dinghy outboard is broken and can’t be fixed until Monday so we inched at idle speed to shore. We stashed the dinghy behind Tidewater Marina. They want $12 dollars each time you tie up, so we stash behind the Marina. This is me pretending that I own the joint.

After a short ride along Portsmouth’s beautiful riverside trail we came to the ferry landing, found the welcome center and ticket office, paid the .75, for seniors,and waited for the ferry due in 15 minutes.

We’re expert at sniffing out what we need in unfamiliar locations due to our bike trekking and location scouting. We soon had our bearings, and we were at the UPS store in 45 minutes, with the ram still firmly strapped to the rack on my bike. I’m seen here waiting for the shipping quote.

It started to look like rain and we had a long way to go before we could close the overhead hatches–we didn’t want to bake Izzy (adventure Kitty) Katzenbaum so we didn’t take advantage of any sightseeing.

Marce waiting for the ferry, worrying about rain. We got back to EV just in time, after an agonizingly slow ride back in the dinghy. Then I had to scour the joint to find a temporary shackle so we could stow the dinghy again.

The Autopilot ram is on the way. Well, it will be on Monday.