Life on the hard goes on.  In case I forgot to tell you we are located at Chesapeake Virginia, not Chesapeake Bay that's another 20 or so miles up the river. Carl worked on the boat all day doing little things that needed to be done. He got the stuffing box back on so that will hopefully save a little money.We went to the Food Lion and got groceries but that's about all. I walk Bella a few times a day and sit in the shade and watch the boats go by. And in the afternoon I did beat Carl at 2 games of dominoes..Yeah that's right I won... After dinner we did have a little wine and cheese party with Rocky and Chris. They are a couple of sailors living at the marina. Chris is redoing his boat and Rocky has a 42ft Morgan (sailboat) and he stays at marina's for a month at a time.Rocky brought the wine, Chris the crackers and me the cheese.. It was a very entertaining to listen to everyone swap stories although  I think were a little stretched....It was fun, and  it gave us something to do to help pass the time.. .Sure hope they get us done tomorrow....Gotta go I'm gonna try to find something to do today... I would love to hear some comments or get some emails.. So if you feel like communicating  please do so.. My email is wavechasers2@ Hotmail.com

Up up and away, that's what we are.. Yes we are up on stands and away from where we would like to be... We got the news that they will not have our shaft back in till Monday at the earliest. Just as luck would have it they don't work on the weekends, and they sent our propeller blade out to  have the hole reamed out. They said someone had taken a hammer to it (Eric) and everything must be done well no half ass job here...So here we sit.. Today we walked over to the local shopping center. I didn't take my grocery list as a lady told me that the store was very high priced, so I decided to wait and go to Food Lion today. Its a lot farther down the road and a fellow sailor said he would  driver me there. We did go to the Dollar Store and get Bella's nails trimmed at a grooming shop, and bonus we got a smoothie at Tropical Smoothie's . We love that place. The weather is still very hot.!! The index said it felt like over 100*. I'M MELTING...So you know those smoothies were really a treat.. We meet a very nice couple name Craig & Sue on a 42ft sailboat called Stolen Moments (cool name) and Bob a tag-along sailor on a 38 ft Catalina ,who had followed them all the way from St. Augustine..Bob is 77 years old and sailing by himself , so they just seemed to have adopted him. Great People also on their way to Maine. They had made this trip many times as Craig is from there and they visit every summer. Craig invited us over so he could show us some places where to anchor at on the chart, so we stopped by their boat and marked our charts.Very nice boat.. From everything we hear we are gonna love this place.. Can't wait till we get there lots to see and do...As we got done doing that they asked if we wanted to go have a beer at Big Woody's. We were getting ready to leave the boat,when dark clouds moved in and  and high winds persisted for the rest of the evening. So we never made it to Woody's.. Love the name cause we all know that's where we hang out at home. So here we sit on the hard and just waited till the time we can move on, hope it is soon.....

All I can say is thank god Carl put those couple of fans on the boat, cause boy is it hot!!! Even when we got up this morning it was still pretty hot..Carl headed out  to find James Taylor , (marine manager not the singer) to find out when they can haul us out of the water. he had talked to him at 8am but no one had gotten there by 10am .Soon after that three guys showed up to move the boat, one got on the boat with us and another was in this small but powerful boat to pull us and one just helped with the lines. They towed us around back of the marina where they have the lift and readied  us to extract us from the water.By this time it was lunch break so we had to wait. Carl wanted to stay with the boat and I decided that I would do laundry today. The washers and dryers are only a $1.00 each and that's a great price, and it gave me something to do. It's not like we were going anywhere. So I gathered up the clothes and headed to the laundry, besides the lounge next to the laundry has AC . Someone had left their clothes in the washers so I had to go ask if I could remove them. Tim from the marina got me a couple of plastic bags to put them in and I got started. Rocky the guy who's wash it was, showed up to put his clothes in the dryer. He is quite the character, he decided to hang around with me all day while I did my laundry and tell me his stories. It made for an interesting time!! Carl stayed with the boat while they hauled us out and set us on stands. He helped the guy remove the shaft and talked about what they were gonna do. Then the rain came, glad to have it maybe it will cool it off  some around here. Carl got under the boat during the pouring rain so he could wash off all that muddy stain on the bottom from all the rivers we have been in.We are so happy that we will be on the outside once we leave the Chesapeake.  We can't look at another river.. We didn't eat all day, to much to do I guess. After the rain we walked to a local bar where they were have .25.cent wings for dinner. Only it turned out they were 45 cent wings. Still a good price.. I got  a salad and we had a couple of drinks and it was back to the boat. Strange to be staying on a boat that is up in the air and not in the water. How does that go ..oh yeah...this is one big adventure after another..

The morning good news is we are still afloat.!! Carl spent the morning trying to figure out how  repair the broken propeller shaft and get it ready for the machinist. After a time he decided it was more than he could handle by himself and we would need to be taken out of the water so Sea Tow was called. We are so far out in the boonies that they said it would be 3 hours until they could reach us .Once Carl was finished doing what he does it was time to go swimming.. YEAH PLAY DAY.....The navy returned  to do their exercises and we wished them good morning and went a bit farther down the beach to play.. Well what they call a beach in the country. This was a wonderful time...We spent a couple of hours swimming  and  running in and out of the water with Bella on our tail. As the day went on she got more confident in water and kept coming farther out each time..Carl would chase her and she would jump and splash around, this was great fun....And very cooling as it is sweltering outside...Mid 90's and no wind....The boys from the navy broke down on their landing craft and asked Carl if he had any tools... Does Carl have tools.. I guess you could say that...So he grabbed his tools and went to help.. Awesome he was getting to help the navy. Carl loved that... I think they must have been in Navy Seals training ,cause I asked them question like where is the base , are they on a ship etc. and all they said was somethings are better left not said...Then a lovely little family arrived on the beach and got out to go swimming and play and so we got friendly with them . Mike , Kate and 3 year old Avery. Avery took to me right away and was swimming to me and wanted me to build a sand castle with her. So I did... Mike turned out to be a surfer so he came over to check out the boat and how Carl had hung the surfboards inside..As he left he gave us his phone number and said to give them a call when we come back through and we will Bar.B.Q..Very nice people, we are meeting the greatest people on this trip..  Lunch was made then Sea Tow arrived to tow us away. Even though had a wonderful time in this backwater, podunk  little area, nothing around for miles we were glad to be moving on and leaving our new home,  the abandoned dock....Enough could not be said for how glad we are that we got our Sea Tow membership renewed before we left..This time we were towed for 2.5 hours.... 23 miles up river... The bill if we would have had to pay for it would have been $1687.50... could you imagine... Love Sea Tow....We are now at Atlantic Yacht Basin.. This is a huge marina they have facilities for any kind of repair you could possibly need. Just to walk down the dock to the office has got to be a quarter mile..They have many buildings and covered area to work on boats inside, also laundry,showers and lounge all with air conditioning and anything else you need within walking distance..Plus they are also having a special right now for a haul out at only $5.00 a foot... Bonus call us lucky...So we checked in , not like we could go anywhere else..Had dinner and took a couple of nice long showers, and sat in the lounge until we cooled way down.. Man its hot.no wind...It was hotter here then in Florida .. The rest of the night was spent inside the boat avoiding the dreaded mosquito's...Even with the breakdowns I am having a marvelous time.. This is a great trip.. I'm sure Carl would be happy if he didn't have to do so much repair ..But like Malcolm ( a man on another sailboat) said its all part of the adventure,,And we are living life to the fullest...