Voyage of QEII - Oriental NC to Norfolk VA - March 2009

Time came to bring our new to us ship home from Oriental to Norfolk. It was mid March and weather can be a bit bolloxy that time of the year. We were however very lucky and managed to time good weather with an opening in the calendar of our good friends Tim and Diane Leighton.

Tim and Diane had kindly offered to help us bring our boat home and we were happy to take them up on that offer!

Tim and Diane owns a nearly identical Catalina 400, "Magic", of the same year model and only a few hull numbers apart from ours.

Anyways, we hopped in a truck fully loaded with gear and headed down to Oriental on a Tuesday night.

Early wednesday morning we departed Oriental for Belhaven. Arrived in Belhaven in the afternoon and tied up in a small marina.

Thursday morning we headed up the Alligator river canal to Alligator Marina where Timmy made a life long friend in Wanda the Marina Manager.

Friday it was off to Coinjock where we tied up for the night and sampled the Prime Rib, not quite as good as the reputation but tasty nonetheless.

Tim now has a new favorite movie ;-)

Saturday morning saw us heading north to Norfolk Waterside Marina and Sunday afternoon we docked Querencia in her new slip at Bay Point Marina.

All in all a very pleasant voyage up the ICW.

Some photograph from the Voyage of QEII

Catalina 400 hull #243 - Querencia - January 2009

We found her in Oriental, NC.

She was a Catalina 400, 2002 model with the slightly queer name of "Aqueous Flair".

She was in good nick, good electronics, low hours and OK equipment.

We made an offer and after the usual shananagans with counter offers, sea trial and survey we finally purchased her the 20 Feb 2009.

Over the next four weeks we spend every weekend commuting to Oriental doing some basic outfitting and repairs, fluffing her up and putting all our gear on the boat.

Time to upgrade to a larger boat - fall 2008 spring 2009.

Over the last couple of years we had been thinking about what boat to buy next and also done quite a bit of research.

The search started in earnest during fall 2008 and the criteria (spec) was refined as the search went along.

We were basically torn between different categories of boats:

1. Older blue water boat - Passport, Tayana, Valiant etc

3. Newer Production boat - Catalina, Beneteau, Hunter

3. High end American boats, Tartan, Sabre etc

4. Older Scandinavian performance boat - Swan, Baltic, Sweden etc

Category 3 was scratched of the list because the prices would have forced us to buy an older boat.

Category 4 ( which I love) was dumped because they often carry to much draft for our cruising ground.

Basic specs we were looking for:

37'-43' length
Aft cockpit
Max draft 6 feet
Max air draft 64 feet (ICW bridges)
Big galley (we like to cook)
Yanmar diesel (Volvo's are good but spare part prices suck...)
2 cabins.
2 heads.
Air Cond (hot on the Chesapeake in summer)

We looked at bunch of boats, Passport 40, Beneteau 423 and 473, Catalina 400, Nassau 42.

Until we found a Catalina 400 down in Oriental, NC

Sailing our first boat, Querencia summer 2006, 2007 and 2008

We sailed out Hunter 30 every opportunity we got, nearly every weekend from March to Christmas Eve . She was an excellent boat and treated us well, and always got us home safely

We learned a lot about sailing and cruising in the Chesapeake and experienced few hairy moments. The lower Chesapeake sailing grounds was an excellent learning ground for us beginners running the gauntlet over the hampton Roads Bridge tunnel and negotiating the waterways with Container ships, aircraft carriers, submarines and cruise ships.

Here are a few shots of our fun times with Q junior

Finding our first boat, Querencia Junior....Summer 2006

Haven gotten the sailing bug bad, we set out to look for a suitable starter boat.

What we had a few prerequesites:
25'-30' boat, to handle a decent sea state
In board diesel engine (Jorgen)
Wheel steering (Maria) - as opposed to tiller
Galley, with stove
Head & Shower
Drink 6, Eat 4, sleep 2.
Furling head sail.
Comfortable sleeping quarters

We looked at quite a few boats and finally found a Hunter 30 1992 that looked very clean.

She was docked in Willoughby Harbor Marina in Norfolk and named "Sanity 2"

We made an offer and couple of weeks later, after survey and sea trial she was ours.

1st Charter.... summer 2006

Well...

Donning our new blue blazers and crisy linen pants we held our ASA 101 & 103 certifications firmly in our mits and figured it was time go sailing all by ourselves (very grown up stuff). To get our toes wet Jorgen booked a 33' Beneteau for a long weekend in July 2006 .

We felt that this was a good lithmus test to see if we would really kill each other, not to mention we were 8 weeks away from tying the knot in Dublin, Ireland.

On the way up to Deltaville, we forewarned the charter company of our impending arrival. They proceeded to inform us that our charter, unfortunately, had broken down but it was not a big problem. We were offered a 39' Beneteau instead, at no extra cost. Ouch, this was going to be an interesting to start our first solo sail. We arrived to the boat and it was bleedin' huge, aircraft carrier scale.

We left the slip Saturday morning without mishaps (excellent driving by Jorgen) and headed out to the Rappahannock river. In what seemed like fair conditions we unfurled the main and the jib and absolutely screamed passed a bunch of sailboats motoring in the river. We headed towards the Bay and smoked a couple of more boats. We must have really looked like we knew what we were doing. For about 10 minutes. Until we rounded up violently, followed by a brilliant unitentional heave to - wow we must have looked professional!! Yesus

Anyway, after a swift change of undies, we sailed the rest of the weekend with no major mishaps. until it was time to head to the fuel dock to top up the 2 gallons we used. We came in towards the dock slowly at a 25 degree angle to dock starboard to, thinking "this is just tooooo easy" just as I where to engange reverse to stop the boat and bring the stern in towards the dock. Good time for the throttle cable to break. Interestingly enough it did and the wind made the boat swing 180 degrees for a less than gracefull portside tie up....

We eventually got her fueled up for $8.00, called the charter company and the dude came down to help us get the boat back.

The way to get her back was to have Jorgen manually operate the throttle lever on the diesel fuel pump, Maria acted as go between of commands at the companion way and charter dude on the helm calling the shots.

As you guessed, we did not kill each other, loved the expereince and decided to go look for a small boat to buy- and got married on the way!!

How it all began...one day spring 2006.

One cold breezey March morning 2006, Maria woke up and decided she wanted to learn how to sail. Having no previous experience she was inspired by Jorgen's tales of sailing in Sweden and Australia as a young lad. Jorgen's motives for learning how to sail were most pure. Living & working in communist Sweden, where the simple luxuries in life often cost an arm & leg, there was very cheap beer to be bought in Denmark ( you've got to love the EEC). Hence young Jorgen along with his sailing pals tackled the brutal straits of the Skagerrak and Kattegat in pursuit of the golden viking nectar.

So starting out on an uneven keel we began to look for sailing courses in the general Tidewater area that work for the both of us. We found that Norton's up in Deltaville offered ASA (American Sailing Association 101 & 103 Basic keelboat sailing & Basic coastal cruising) certified courses and travelled up to Deltaville in late March to check out the facilities. Once up there we liked what we saw and signed up for two courses in late June.

Running over two weekends and was a mix of theory and hands on sailing followed by one exam per course, with at least four hours sailing per day.We sailed a spanking new Hunter 31, similar in size to what we had in mind to eventually purchase. The courses where very enjoyable and we both passed with flying colors.

Now we had a license to sail ! oooh dangerous. Before we decided to purchase a Jorgen came up with a brilliant idea - how about chartering a sail boat a see if we kill each other!!!( in more ways than one)