10/21/21 – 11/01/21 – LONG Stay at Atlantic Yacht Basin Marina on the Elizabeth River in Chesapeake, VA

Day 406 – 418

Bright and early on Thursday morning, 10/21/21, one of AYB’s mechanics arrived at our boat to disappear into Legacy’s engine room and inspect our leaking starboard engine exhaust. From what he could tell initially, he should be able to have us repaired and ready to cruise again by that Saturday, 10/23/21. Great news! 🙂 Even though I was still exhausted from coughing myself silly, once the technician left the boat, Steve and I walked up to a nearby Chili’s for an underwhelming lunch, then farther down to Kroger to restock on provisions. As we were leaving with our multiple bags of groceries for the long (almost one-mile) hike back to our marina, we both wished we’d thought to pull our little blue wagon along with us, since that’s what we’d actually purchased it for… D’OH!

Even though I was enchanted with our peaceful, hideaway slip behind AYB’s marina, I had to stop myself repeatedly from focusing on the fact that our perfect location was basically a fire death-trap, should a fire accidentally start somewhere along our covered finger… We’d read and heard of several recent and horrific fire tragedies occurring in covered marinas across the country, so that worry was often in the back of my mind. 😐 Fortunately, all was well, and Legacy and her crew emerged from that covered slip unscathed.

On Friday, 10/22/21, we walked back up to town, dodging raindrops, for lunch at a dive bar called Big Woody’s, which was just on the far side of the Great Bridge. When we got back to the boat that afternoon, the marina informed us they could not repair the leaking engine exhaust, and so had requested for a new one to be fabricated offsite and replace the old one. UGH! This meant we would be staying at AYB longer than we’d hoped.

During our stay, I walked up to town to a shopping center that housed several exciting stores like Tuesday Morning, Dollar Tree, and Cato, just to do some browsing and spend some time off of the boat. Steve walked up to meet me afterward for another dinner at Vino’s. The weather being just perfect for walking.

As soon as we’d arrived in the Norfolk area, I texted our boating friends we’d met down at Stock Island, Cathy and Scott McKinley, who we’d visited last time on our trip northward, to let them know we were back in their area once again. Since AYB is not far south of where they live, they arranged to drive down and pick us up on Sunday, 10/24/21, and take us to one of their favorite riverfront restaurants in the area. Again, the weather could not have been better, and the four of us thoroughly enjoyed our lunches and each others’ company. So good to see them both again! Later that day, Steve and I commented on just how perfect that day’s weather would’ve been for us to make a major water crossing (the upcoming Albemarle Sound, maybe?), had we not been stuck in place waiting on yet another boat part…

Over the next several days, we made multiple walking trips, and I even Ubered to Michael’s for more crafting supplies. We ate meals at Lockside Bar & Grill and Taste of China, since we had so much downtime. Our wayward boat part finally arrived, and AYB’s mechanics got Legacy back up and running on Wednesday morning, 10/27/21. Unfortunately, we still could not leave due to bad weather and/or no openings at upcoming marinas. SO frustrating!

On Thursday, 10/28/21, we had been “in the cave” for so long, my poor boat plants hadn’t seen sunlight in a full week, so I finally carried them all outside and into the cockpit for some well-deserved natural light. I swear they were so happy with me I could almost hear them cheering. 😉 Improved weather conditions and upcoming marina vacancies had us believing we were finally going to throw off our lines for regions southward, until Steve discovered another broken water pump on the morning of Friday, 10/29! ARGH… We would have to stay until at least Monday, 11/01, so AYB could replace it for us. 🙁 By this time, we’d stayed so long in Chesapeake, VA, I was beginning to think we were destined to move there!

Of course we had perfect traveling weather and conditions on Saturday, 10/30, and Sunday, 10/31, which we had to just sit and look at, since we were being held hostage at AYB. That frustration called for some extra boat drinks – let me tell you! Steve pulled our little blue wagon back up to Kroger for some more groceries, while I stayed onboard and updated this blog. By this point, we had been 10 straight days in “the cave”, and counting.

Monday, 11/01/21, dawned bright, clear and calm yet again – another glorious fall day of which we could still not take advantage. We both had all fingers and toes crossed that AYB would be able to install our new water pump on that afternoon, so we could finally leave out on Tuesday morning, 11/02/21. Glory hallelujah, our pump WAS installed that afternoon, and Legacy was once again ready for departure! To celebrate, we walked back up to Vino’s for a special ‘send-off’ dinner that evening. In fact, we were so anxious to start celebrating, we arrived at the restaurant a full 20 minutes before it opened at 5:00 pm, and – since we had no car to wait in, nor were there any outside benches in front of the place – wound up sitting outside on the curb like a couple of vagrants! At 5:00 pm, we were their very first patrons, happily ordering another delicious meal; this time celebrating with a festive bottle of wine.