Into the Land of Non-Ethanol Gas!!

It had been a great time traveling the Dismal Swamp and finally getting to see it in person, but I was ready to continue south as I had a sneaky plan that I had been working on for a few weeks and the day to put it into motion was quickly arriving!! We locked out of the Dismal Swamp and into Turner’s Cut to make our way to the Posquotank River. The cut was pretty straightforward like most canals but the river followed a more natural course so there were a lot of bends to go around and the scenery was beautiful. After a few hours of travel down the river, we approached the marina we were going to be spending about 5 days at and called them on the radio that we were coming in. Lambs Marina is in a quiet area just outside of Elizabeth City and the staff and boat owners there are about as friendly as you can get. It wasn’t long before both boats were safely tied to the docks and the end of day chores were completed.

And now for the sneaky plan…

So a few weeks before we arrived at the marina, the Pegu Club crew and I had discussed their plans to rent a car and drive back to Annapolis to attend to some business for a couple of days. I was cool with hanging out at Lambs Marina for a few days but then I thought about it and suggested that I also rent a car and drive back home to surprise my lovely bride with a long weekend visit. Well, they thought that would be a wonderful idea so I made reservations to get the car on the Thursday of that week (we were planning to arrive at the marina on Wednesday), leave early Friday morning, and come back on Monday. The Pegu Club crew were planning to head to the free dock at Jennette Bros in Elizabeth City on Sunday morning so I would meet them there once I got back. Now that that part of the plan was coming together, I enlisted the help of my youngest stepson, Jared, and Denise’s sister Lynn, to make sure she didn’t make any plans for that weekend. Good, everything was in place!!

Thursday morning came, the boat was secure, and the driver from Enterprise came to pick us up to go rent the cars. I had packed all my clothes (and laundry…😁) so I could get an early start the next morning but then I thought, “why not leave today instead as it’s only 10am”, so I ran back to the boat, did one more quick check to make sure everything was good, grabbed my stuff, and went back to the van for the ride to the rental place. About 30 minutes later, I was saying goodbye to the Pegu crew and heading home!!

I was very excited to be heading home as I hadn’t been back in 6 weeks plus Denise didn’t have a clue I was doing this!! I was making excellent time coming thru Norfolk, across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel, and onto the DelMar peninsula to continue north. I had started my Waze app to keep track of my time and it was showing my arriving home around 6:30 or so. I had done this drive before so I found it odd that Waze was sending me up Rt 113 instead of Rt 13 at one point but I figured it knew better so I went that way. Big mistake…I drove through more shopping mall areas with nothing but traffic lights than I could imagine. It added about 15 minutes to the trip so once I got on Rt 1, the speedo pretty much never went below 80mph as I zoomed towards the Delaware Memorial Bridge and into New Jersey.

I was going along the NJT and soon enough, I was getting close to the Garden State Parkway so I stopped for gas and a quick break. I jumped on the GSP and kept heading north. I was watching the time and I knew things were going to ball up once I got closer to Newark but I didn’t think it would be sooooo sssslllooowww (of course, I wanted to get home!!). Long story short, I ended up hitting traffic there, Danbury CT, Waterbury CT, and Hartford. Denise and I have a standing 8pm phone call every night so I was trying to figure out how to pull this off while driving. I was just leaving Hartford at 8:00 when she called. For the next half hour, we talked about the trip and things but she never caught on that I was driving so I was safe!! I had about 20 minutes left before I got home so I got ready to spring the surprise on her. As I got close to the house, I called her on the phone and asked her if she was upstairs or downstairs. She said downstairs so I asked her to do me a favor. She said ok. As I was pulling into the driveway, I asked her to turn off the house alarm and come out to the driveway to give me a big hug and that I was pulling in right now!! She said, and I quote, “Are you f’n kidding me?” and then the phone hung up and she came out to the driveway!! Lots of hugs and tears for sure!!

The weekend went by way too quickly and soon enough, I was heading back to get Infinity and met up with Pegu Club at the Jennette Bros dock. I motored about 3 miles down the river and soon started my approach to the dock. Jeff and Kim were waiting to handle my lines so I eased up to the dock. Well, I more than eased up cos I was coming in a bit hot and Jeff and Kim were waving for me to slow down and watch out for the trees that overhang the dock. TREES??? Oh no!! All that time in the Dismal Swamp I avoid the trees and now, in a huge open area, I’m running my mast and rigging cables thru a tree…yikes!! The next 10 seconds was nothing but chaos as branches, leaves, and about a million acorns came showering down on the boat and I bounced off the dock. Luckily, the Pegu crew had grabbed my lines and soon enough, things were secure. I spent the next hour cleaning stuff off the boat…(to this day, I’m still finding acorns in hidden places around the boat)!!

So we spent a day or so waiting for a good weather window to cross the Albemarle Sound, which is notorious for being very rough in wind above 10-15kts. Much to our surprise, the window opened up really wide and we took off early in the morning to really start making tracks south!! We were all ready to get ahead of the colder weather that would inevitably catch up to us so this was a welcomed opening. The crossing was actually very nice and calm as we motorsailed to the other side, went thru a swing bridge, and headed to our anchorage for the night!! Life was good!!

And to explain the title of this post….the gasoline down here doesn’t have ethanol in it AT ALL!! So no more crappy running generators or outboard motors! It must be a New England thing I guess….😖

Next up…days of sailing offshore, lovely southern towns, and water pumps that hate me…

❤️❤️❤️