Wednesday May 18: Deltaville, VA

We are now in Deltaville, Virginia. Seems we have ventured into the land of the Monks.

There are at least 15 Monk 36' trawlers here for a get together - started late yesterday and continues until Friday.

Sort of a long story how we ended up here ...

So back to Ohio for a minute. The decision to drive back instead of flying was a good one - especially with being able to break the 10 hour drive up with the stop in Alexandria at Matt and Wendy's.

Once in Ohio there were no mushrooms to be had even though Steve walked all over the woods at the farm as well as through the woods at a friend's home.

Morels (click here for more info) are fickle things. Just when you think the weather is perfect, these finicky growers decide it's too wet, not wet enough, too hot, too cold, too whatever and they simply refuse to grow.

When I was growing up, every spring was the time to scour the woods in search of these elusive mushrooms - with some years good and some bad. Usually early May but not always. Kind of a hit or miss thing. Sadly this year was a miss.

After  a week of time with family and friends we headed back to Norfolk, again stopping at Matt and Wendy's to break up the trip. It's always enjoyable to spent time with them! The plus was we could help celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary! I am still confused as to how it is possible it has been 20 years ago - seems like it was only yesterday .....

We left Norfolk yesterday - destination Deltaville on the Chesapeake Bay. Banana Bay neighbors Randy and Cindy (formerly on I Think I Can) were attending the Monk rally here (their new boat is a Monk) and it was a nice 60 mile distance from Norfolk so we decided to join them.

Passing by all of the Naval ships as we left Norfolk is so impressive! I particularly liked the one that seemed to have no outside walkways at all. Very sleek. Maybe to make it hard to find on radar??

And of course the aircraft carriers are always impressive.

Norfolk is also a very busy port with cargo carrier ships coming and going. The one in the picture on the right was being moved into the channel by the tug boats just as we were coming up to it.

The usual rule of the biggest boat has the right of way definitely applied :-) I gladly gave way ...

The forecast for the day was cloudy all day with rain beginning about 10 and lasting the rest of the day.

Pretty accurate too.

There was little to no wind but lots of rain. Some of the hardest we've been in for a while.

It was a very trying day driving as the clouds seemed to form a perfectly uniform color. With almost no landmarks at all (couldn't begin to see any shoreline), it was steering according to a compass heading. Let's once again let's hear it for chart plotters!

We're here for another day as the weather is supposed to be windy (translates to larger waves on the Chesapeake than we like) today yet and start settling down tomorrow.

In the meantime we're enjoying spending time with Randy and Cindy (even though they didn't bring Cricket and Gigit) and relaxing for a day. Tomorrow, off to the Solomons in Maryland.