Day 401 – 404
I awoke on Saturday morning with my bronchitis still lingering, so I spent a large portion of that day visiting a Yorktown urgent care (naturally…), then a Walgreen’s for more meds, then back to the marina via Uber rides. 🙁 By the time I got back onboard Legacy, I was exhausted. That afternoon at 4:30 pm, the predicted cold front came roaring through Yorktown, with very strong winds (gusts up to 45 mph!) and a deluge of cold rain. 😐 Even though the harbor master had moved us to the inside of the marina’s transient wall, Riverwalk Landing Marina sits right on the York River, where it meets the Chesapeake Bay, so it is not at all protected. As a result, our poor boat absolutely rocked, rolled, and strained at her lines for hours clear into the night. When we went to bed, it was like trying to sleep while riding a high-speed roller-coaster! Amazingly enough, however, we both awoke the next morning feeling refreshed and thankful Legacy had not pulled loose from the wall and washed out into the Bay during the night!
As when most cold fronts blow through over night, Sunday, 10/17/21, dawned perfectly clear, but still windy and chilly. Legacy continued her rocking and rolling, but to a slightly lesser degree than the night before. My new medications seemed to be helping to quiet my cough some and I felt better, though still tired. We both stayed onboard until early afternoon, when we donned wind-breakers and walked against the wind to Yorktown Pub, which was beachfront, for an early dinner. Sadly, it was way too cool and blustery to dine outside on the water, but the food and service inside were terrific.
On Monday morning, I Ubered to the closest Great Clips for a much-needed haircut. Before I returned to the marina, I walked next door to Food Lion for a few staples, then Ubered back from there. Everything went perfectly that day, and without a single hitch, which was unusual, refreshing, and did a lot to lift my spirits. 🙂 That evening we walked back to Water Street Grille for dinner, as it was one of the only restaurants within walking distance that was open on a Monday. I thoroughly enjoyed a delicious Burrata cheese with watermelon salad accompanied by grilled salmon. YUM!
On Tuesday, 10/19/21, we had a total surprise visit from our old sailing friends we knew at Seabrook Marina, down on Galveston Bay, when we lived in Houston, and had our beloved sailboat, Farther Stars, slipped there during the last half of the 2000s. 🙂 Carol and James Rush and Bill and Shelley Kessinger cruised their dinghies south across the York River from their current marina in Gloucester Point, down to our marina in Yorktown, after Carol spotted Legacy’s current location on their Nebo app. SO COOL! We all stood around on our dock finger talking for several hours, reminiscing, and telling boat stories. Such a very nice surprise for us, as we’d not seen each other for years!
There’s lots of interesting water traffic on the York River. We watched all sorts of vessels cruise by us from our vantage point at Riverwalk Landing Marina. At one point, we watched the local “pirate” sailboat (a nicely restored schooner) take tourists out on some VERY rough waters, so rough, they dropped their sails very soon into the cruise and only motored around, for the comfort and safety of their passengers. Steve and I were very surprised the boat went out at all in those conditions, but it did! We guessed they most likely were scrubbing a lot of tourist vomit from their decks that day! 🙂 The boat’s attempt to offload its passengers onto a very bouncy, floating dock-finger from an even bouncier boat plank was definitely fodder for a YouTube video, and had we been closer, I would’ve attempted a video of that accident just waiting to happen. Miraculously, and most fortuitous for the boat’s crew and passengers, everyone managed to disembark without incident – WHEW! Later that afternoon, we watched in awe as three large and loud LCAC (land craft air cushion) Navy Seal hovercrafts zoomed right past our boat as they traversed the York River! That was our very first time to ever see anything like those vessels, and the way they hovered just above the surface of the water as they sped along was surreal, and looked like something off of The Jetsons, had that cartoon been bent toward the military. 😉
That evening we returned to Yorktown Pub for our early dinner, even though it was still too cool to dine al fresco. Luckily, the hostess seated us near a window, so we could at least SEE the water, if not eat right outside next to it.
Position: N 37° 14.328, W 76° 30.417
Total marina nights: 380
Total nights at anchor: 23