Yorktown & Lila's first big adventure

Yorktown!

We left Deltaville! It took all day for the new display to arrive. We sea tested and calibrated the unit. Once we were done we dropped off Mike on the Deltaville dock in a touch and go fashion then zoom away we go into the sunset.  I hear Ben is blogging right now so I don’t need to give the details just highlights and pictures.

This morning while waiting and again it was hot, we went to Dick and Anne’s place and learned more about our Single Side Band! Finally we can tune to frequencies and hear people! That was amazing and exciting!

Tom saw us still at the dock and said, “when are you going to get a Deltaville Boatyard T-shirt?” Funny tom! I would like one for a memento.

We snuck off without saying goodbye because we have been saying good bye for a few days/weeks/month.

Ok hightlight… It was a beautiful day! Sunny and hot and actually when we left not a breath of wind. We motored and I said to Ben, “I don’t like to be pushed to do things when we are not ready.” I have not played with the new GPS/chartplotter to just go off and sail at night, that would stress me. Interestingly, he just said we can motor. It’s easy to be the captain when he agrees with me… I did not have to whine or complain but just state my case and poof. Then I felt better cuz now we had wind and it would be hard to put up a main sail while windy. Ahhh I felt better.

I played and played with all the equipment. So slick! So easy! I absolutely love AIS! When we are at night or day a triangle will pop on the screen (the triangle looks like an arrow pointing) I can tell the direction. Last year at night I could see the target but not know which way they were moving. I click another screen and a list of all the vessels within 20 miles will pop on my screen! Now for me to see they have to have AIS – it is a law that all big ships and tugs etc.. have to have this equipment. So little boats and other sailboats don’t have it then you have to find them on radar. This radar was amazing! Now I know how big a sailboat looks like on radar. Way Way Better than our last one.  Last year the radar was the old fashion one with streaks and smudges oh my that stressed me out.  But this radar was very cool.  The only thing I didn’t figure out (I’ll look on the manual tomorrow) how do you tell weather? Clouds? We started getting a quick rain shower off in the distance and it looked like a fleet of ships coming at us when it was clouds. Humm I’m glad I didn’t go night sailing today!

Here is the kicker, we are motoring along about an hour and a half away when Ben said, “Hey I’ll water proof the autohelm box like Mike asked us to do.” Sounds like a good idea since we see clouds coming soon. He touched the back of the box and the autohelm went crazy and turned 90 degrees. The picture on the screen when wacky! I turned off the auto helm and was now steering myself following the old fashion bouys. BUT I knew where we were cuz I had been paper charting all day. I also ran down and got the hand held gps back up, turned it on. This is the first time I had used handheld gps Ben has already played with it and knows how it works.  Like he played with the SSB (single side band radio) and he knew some and could help Dick and Anne with a few fun buttons and things. Then we disconnected the autohelm and then the chartplotter worked using the gps – as long as  we are moving the gps will give us a heading but when we stop the gps only give a dot on a screen without “direction” so no heading would be displayed. It was a good drill for us today one I hope to have both of us remember that we need to know where we are at all times on the charts just in case this happens.

We came into Yorktown with a windy day and the tide was rising… here is a nice feature too – it tells me my water speed! Imagine? So now I can drive up slow and I know when I am stopping where before when the engine was in idle there was no information as to how fast on water I was going.  I didn’t tell Ben until we were done mooring.  He said I did and excellent job, the best ever.  I then confessed it was easy when I knew how fast and slow to go.

Well I’m tiried tonight and Ben is blogging for you all so he can tell all the details today.  Smiling big Pam, blessings to you all!