Overall our trip back north was uneventful, well … except for our haul-out & … a hail storm!  While docked at Delaware City Marina, we walked to get take-out at a nearby crab shack, as we were under several weather warnings which didn’t disappoint!  Although only quarter-sized, we had quite the show & boy was it loud on our fiberglass hull.  While hail may be common in many parts of the country, this is only the second time in my life I recall sizable hail – the first was in the late ’90’s.  Our house in Essex sustained several thousands in damage including damaged windows & broken glass.  For several years you still saw the occasional dented car.

We like redundancy, which is one reason we like catamarans … 2 hulls, 2 engines, etc.  While our main navigational electronics are 13 years old & were working sort-of o.k., our flybridge chartplotter would often go dim and/or beep warnings about this or that.  We have been supplementing them with an iPad mounted at the helm … again … redundancy.  I have often considered a major upgrade, but had stopped counting at a $17,000 replacement cost, as we have a large chartplotter both on the helm below & on the flybridge.  With changes in technology, we would also have to replace our radar, our heading sensor & so on.  “Just living with them” ended during our trip north when our flybridge chartplotter went dark at the same time our iPad’s internal GPS “got lost”.  In a particularly hazardous portion of the ICW, we had to navigate by iPhone.

Still, not wanting to spend $17,000+ along with several weeks of installation – eBay to the rescue!  For only $400, I replaced our flybridge chartplotter with a similar used model which works perfectly.  We will replace our iPad this summer with a new model.

Do you recall in the “olden” days when the postal service offered package delivery sent to a Post Office c/o General Delivery?  Well, they still do!  We had our eBay purchase sent to a town we knew we would be stopping at a week later & it all worked out well.

Lots of osprey nests, as usual.

A lovely sunset over Atlantic Highlands, NJ

Never tire of transversing the East River in NYC

The Old Saybrook, CT breakwater for the 200+th time. Home!

We’ll be at a slip in Deep River, Connecticut for a few weeks, before wandering around Long Island & the Vineyard for the rest of the summer.  It looks like returning to Maine will have to wait until next summer.

Some things you can only put off for so long … 

After almost 3 years, our bottom paint was no longer doing its job very well, which meant more swimming to scrape off barnacles & scrub off growth – almost fun in the Bahamas – not so much elsewhere.  We attempted to haul-out in Florida, but the yards were extremely busy, as many cruisers (especially Canadians) haul-out & leave their boats in Florida for hurricane season.

The sanding isn’t fun either…

… but I had my best helper working hard!

Ahhh …. as good as new!

We found a recommended boatyard in Deltaville, Virginia which could handle our wide beam, allows do-it-yourself labor & living aboard “on the hard”.  It may be called “on the hard” because you’re on hard land, but living aboard while hauled out is pretty hard as well!  We had electricity to run our refrigeration … but that was about it.  Our A/C can’t work on land.  The water at the marina is not potable – we only had the water in our tank.  Deltaville is fairly remote, so no taxis, Uber or rental cars, which also meant no restaurants, grocery stores or take-out.  Our timing was bad with the Memorial Day 3-day weekend, so we had to hustle and finish in 4 days or be stuck for 7 days.  Boy, did we hustle – successfully launched Friday afternoon with 2 coats of bottom paint & hulls (mostly) waxed.

In the end, Stingray Point Boat Yard was a good yard to work with & they were very accommodating to our hauling/launch schedule.

How many times have I hauled out?  Well, this is me “on the hard” around 1966, so I’d say too many!