Day 7, Year 1: Lewes, Delaware
Date: Monday, October 24, 2005
Weather:
Location: Town Dock, Lewes, Delaware

Here’s a little history lesson for you. Did you know that Lewes, Delaware, Sussex County, was discovered by Henry Hudson in 1609 and became the first city established in the first state of the United States? It was settled in 1631 by Dutch colonists, plundered by Captain Kidd and other pirates as late as 1698, bombarded by a British frigate during the war of 1812, and invaded by Judy and Mark Handley aboard Windbird in October of 2005. We certainly didn’t all know this until we landed here. It is a very welcoming community, but it is still not home. When you are experiencing “technical difficulties” you feel particularly far away from friends and family. So many of you have called and e-mailed and offered assistance and we truly appreciate it. Our biggest problem right now is finding a temporary home for Windbird where the required work can be done. The required work is indeed going to be the installation of a new engine, and finding the right place to do that here is a challenge. The challenge brings me to the wonderful people here.

Sitting here at the town dock, we have met some incredible people. Most notable among those is Scott Gaston. He is what I would call a young entrepreneur and a great friend of sailors. He is 24 years old, owns 13 boats at the moment, and hopes soon to sail around the world. He is one of the most helpful people we could possibly hope to meet. He is trying at this moment to find a place that we can take our boat to have the necessary work done. The problem here is our size. We are too wide and too deep for most docks, so in the meantime we sit here at the Lewes Town Dock and are paying $2.00 per foot per day. Ouch! Because of our depth, we can only move about in this canal at high tide. That is around 3:00 in the afternoon and today we tried to move to the marina which is a stone’s throw across the canal. After about an hour of maneuvering, we returned to the Town Dock with a bent stanchion and a lot of wood from pilings on our rub rail. We tried valiantly to get into one of the finger piers offered to us by Captain Parsons, but hard as we tried, we could not plow our way into the shallow slips. Scott, whom I mentioned above, came in here to the Town Dock last night and struck up a conversation with Mark. He has his Tartan 35 docked up the Broadkill River and is offering to let us have his slip, but on the way there we would have to clear a place with 5 foot depths and that would probably stop us dead in the water. He is continuing to try and find other options for us and we are so appreciative.

The other person who has been tremendously helpful is David Laux, boat builder and engine repair person extraordinaire. He is working with us to figure out the best way to fix our problem and make sure we have the best power system for our cruise to the South Pacific and beyond. David, Mark, and I are of the same “vintage” and we are really enjoying getting to know David and his wife, Donna, as friends, as well as “boat repairers.”

Now for the negative side of what is happening here and that would be the weather. Right now we are recording 25 knot winds in this protected canal, but we understand the winds are predicted to reach 50 miles per hour. Another ouch! Mark is out on the dock right now securing the lines and adding more fenders. This blow is supposed to last through tomorrow. We’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings.

We really love hearing from so many of you. It helps us feel connected and loved. Keep those e-mails coming and send your positive energy this direction. We need it right now. I’ll let you know tomorrow if we have made progress.

051024 Day 7 Boston to Norfolk, USA–New Friends, David and Donna Laux