On Thursday October 14th, Gadfly, Painkiller, and Exodus set off from Deltaville to head down the bay in the rain to Yorktown. After a couple of hours of fighting a head wind, we did the calculation and determined that arrival in Yorktown at 11:00 PM (2300) would be a bit late for a dinner reservation at Riverwalk for 7:15 PM.
We contacted Guy Beale and he agreed that he and Tom Russell would come to Deltaville to join us for dinner. So reluctantly we turned around and headed back into Jackson Creek. We had a delightful dinner (at Toby’s) with the crews of the three vessels and with Guy and Tom telling stories of past Crusties and with the Admiral sharing some of the stories of adventures during his time with the Navy. A very delightful dinner, always a treat to see Guy and Tom and we are so grateful that these guys will come out to join us for dinner.
On Friday we decided that Reedville would be a good destination so we took off to head north. Perry developed some minor problems with oil pressure sending unit and Exodus would not run smoothly. Seeing as he was in his home port, Painkiller and Gadfly set sail for Reedville while Perry was waiting for the Mechanic to come check his engine out. The problem ended up being a faulty sending unit that also affected the fuel flow. They were able to find a replacement but not in time for Exodus to come out and sail up to Reedville. We had a great first half of the trip and then the weather deteriorated with high wind and rain and made the last two hours quite exciting if not just plain messy. After the rain stopped, the trip up Cockrell creek was pleasant. We took slips at the Reedville Marina (home of the Crazy Crab Restaurant). We ate dinner there and then listened to weather reports with forecasts of 30 knots we decided that a day of sightseeing in Reedville would be the order of business for Saturday.
We did the Fisherman’s Museum which turned out to be a great idea. This museum is very well done and provides a lot of interesting history on Reedville, the fishing industry and the Northern Neck. After that we rode out to the Farmer’s Museum. Unfortunately the indoor exhibits were closed but we spent some time looking at the outside exhibits. Then it was back to Crazy Crab for the Virginia Tech slaughter of Wake Forest. Dinner was cooked on board.
On Sunday morning, Gadfly and Painkiller pooled breakfast rations and we dined on bacon, sausage, Italian potatoes, English muffins along with crab and cheese omelets. Following the killer breakfast, we went straight to bloody Mary’s and skipped lunch. It was a great sail down the bay back to Deltaville.
