January 01st to February 12th, 2010 - SEATTLE, WA TO DELTAVILLE, VA TO ST MARY'S, GA

We prepare to fly out of Seattle, WA, back to the boat in Deltaville, VA. Friends Dave and Linda (SV Starshine), now landlubbers, meet us for a short visit. It was great to see them again!

Back at the marina in Deltaville we are greeted by very cold weather. We had snow that lasted one day and the boats are reflected in the ice, yes ICE, in the marina.

I am on my back drilling holes to attach our new "Cape Horn" steering gear. Ice was flowing past my head as I worked.

We make an unscheduled stop in Norfolk, VA to wait for a lift bridge to be repaired. We take in the National Geographic presentation on the pirate ship "Whydah". It was very well done and we even got to touch some of the treasure recovered. It was returning home after raiding some 50 ships, when it sank off Cape Cod. It held a fortune in treasure, but remained undiscovered until the 1980s.

At the end of the exhibit was the life boat from the "Alabama". This was the boat where the US Navy snipers killed the pirates and freed Captain Richard Philips, in a failed piracy attempt in April, 2009.

We also walked around the Battleship "Wisconsin", now a part of the Nautica Museum. Unfortunately we did not have time for me to take the tour.

Anchorage Sunsets on our way down the IntraCoastal Waterway (ICW).

We saw lots of dredging and bridge building, much of it funded by the federal government's economic stimulus grants. The bridge is called Sunset Beach Bridge and we arrived at... you guessed it.

Houses and Condos all seem to have docks to accommodate their owners boats.

Boats on the beach. Sad to see. It looks like the owner of "Double D" lost his bet.

The passing scene on the sunny days. We had two kinds of weather. Sunny and cold (30 to 40 F) and rainy and "warm" (50 to 65 F).

A fashion show of what the boater with no cockpit enclosure and a heater that decided to go on strike wears.

St Mary's is a quaint, boat friendly, town at the south end of Georgia. The downside we found is that nothing opens until 11 am at this time of year. We had to catch a 11 am tide so we missed much of what the town has to offer, including the Submarine museum. We share the free municipal dock with a Coast Guard Cutter.