Hampton - Doing battle with faucets and heads

One last photo of Norfolk Botanical Gardens 

Monday was a day off for exploring and more along the lines of repairing a few things on the boat for the rest of the trip. Nobody talks about heads (the bathroom on a boat) but they are a very necessary requirement for a boat and they must work correctly! I will not go into the details but if you ever own a boat, you will be faced with changing the joker valve (such fun!) and replacing various seals and other parts. Unfortunately, you will become an expert whether you want to or not.

Likewise for other routine chores such as changing oil and the oil filter and fuel filter on the main engine and if you have a genset, then you are lucky enough to be able to do all engine maintenance twice! And, there are odds and ends like repairing wearing items on the faucets and repairing various leaks that develop over time. You are never going to learn this stuff out of a book, not at least until you have to learn "on the job", it's just not exciting enough to spend any time in advance until you absolutely have to - although it would be more efficient to do so.

Hampton is still building! A brick and concrete building, nope - just a facade

Unfortunately, the same approach applies to some extent in running the ICW. For example, you do not follow the ICW line between Charleston and Georgetown, it's too far to the green side - the charts are wrong. Here you can in fact learn in advance by following postings on Active Captain submitted by other captains transiting the same area, usually only a few days ago. If you don't use Active Captain, you will run into trouble on the ICW!

So although there are courses on maintaining a boat and running the ICW, most people learn by doing. The first part is fine (maintaining a boat) that way but not running the ICW unless you enjoy running aground a lot.  Going off shore is another matter entirely, you had better know what you're doing there. So we mostly stick to the ICW where there are things to see and places to explore. We enjoy the trip as opposed to a view several miles off shore of the far away beach when making passages off shore.

As far as our plans, it looks like the winds may abate Tuesday afternoon and if they do, we'll be off for Cape Charles, a place we've never been to before. Don and Liz will travel with us too.