April 25-28

Since we are located next to the Great Bridge bridge, I thought I should investigate why it is called Great Bridge- because it doesn’t look like anything special to me.  I have learned that the Battle of Great Bridge occurred here on December 9^th of 1775, as part of the American Revolution.    The victory by the continental army led to the departure of the British from the area, back to Norfolk

We’ve been tied up to the face dock at Atlantic Yacht Basin since Sunday afternoon, and not a lot has been happening.

  On Monday morning, Andy informed the Customer Service rep that we were here for our window replacement, which we had booked the previous week when the window cracked.     We then proceeded to spend our time cleaning the inside and outside of the boat, as we had some potential buyers coming to see it on Tuesday. By noon we hadn’t seen the service manager yet so we walked a couple blocks to the mall and had lunch and did some shopping. We waited until 4:15 for the service manager to make an appearance at our boat.  Frustrating! He told us he’d put a call in to his window people in the morning—a sub contractor—we were led to believe that windows were done by AYB people.    He also said it may be 4-5 days to get it fixed, because it is tinted tempered glass.

On Monday night I made vindaloo, and Rafe came for dinner, we later walked to the Dairy Queen,  crossing Battlefield Boulevard, was a bit of a challenge, as the road was quite busy,  a sheriff finally put on his blue flashers and let us cross.  He did remark that it was quite dark out and to be safe!

Here’s  the sunset Monday night.

Tuesday morning, the waiting and cleaning continued.   The couple from France came to see the boat at 2 pm—they are hoping to do the loop in the near future and wanted to find out what type of boat options are out there.  Late Tuesday afternoon  the service manager said we could try another supplier for the glass. It had  been a hot day mid 80’s so we went to Dairy Queen again for ice cream.

Andy removed the window early (6:30) Wednesday morning, so that it could be shipped out.  I spent the better part of the next three-hours removing the caulking from the window frame and track.

 

The captain worked on waxing and polishing the gel coat on the boat.

In the afternoon we went for walk to get groceries, on our way we toured one of the storage sheds at AYB and saw this beauty.

We’ve seen lots of boats come down the Cheseapeake canal and wait for the bridge.  Here’s a few that passed by today.  There is also a free dock just across the channel so the boats change there every few hours or days as well.

Rafe came over in the evening and we played cards the work on his boat was finally finished today so he’ll be leaving in the morning.  No Dairy Queen tonight, instead I had baked chocolate chip cookies.  At about 9:00 it started raining, we had covered up the window  hole with plastic to keep the boat dry.  At 10:00 we saw a  3 level cruise ship go through the Great Bridge.

It’s now Thursday morning, there is still light intermittent rain falling.  We hope the window gets installed today, as this stay is cutting in to the number or days we have to spend on  Chesapeake Bay

Our plan is to make our way   north and visit with some friends of Andy’s that live in Salisbury  early next week.