Return to DYC

[Kyle]We left Yopps Creek at first light for the short sail back to Deltaville Yachting Center, where Begonia spent many weeks refitting last year before continuing to Weehawken for the winter. We knew the winds were forecast to be very light, so we wanted to be able to drift along at walking speed and still know we’d be tied up by noon.

An early start today

Even though we have a history with DYC, we still prefer not to go to marinas because of the cost. In this case however, we planned to stop in to meet with Charlie from Bay Rigging, the guy who replaced the standing rigging and the roller furling the year before as well as being one of the major resources in repairing our mast. He had told me when I left to stop by on the way back south for a checkup and retuning; new rigging is known to stretch and we plan some significant passages over the next year, so we bit the bullet and sprung for a night at DYC.

It was both weird and nice to be back at DYC. Little seems to have changed, except that their wifi was much improved (Thanks, guys). There were two things that made it strange. The first was that we weren’t doing any work. During my prior stay I had become so conditioned in the environment to thinking I had to get a million things done that this time it was a little disconcerting, although pleasantly so, to be able to just relax and enjoy it. The other thing that was strange was the heat. In July and August, the muggy heat in Deltaville makes even the thought of being outside uncomfortable. Now, it was perfectly pleasant inside and out. I found myself habitually stalling in the marina office to get just a few more minutes of air conditioning in before going outside and then being genuinely surprised all over again that it was just fine out there.

Charlie had a few things come up, so he didn’t make it the first day, but promised to be there the next morning. We decided to get an early jump on the other thing I had been looking forward to in Deltaville: Pizza at Stan String’s. For some reason, even though Deltaville is only a one pizza joint town, Stan Strings has pizza that would put everyone else in the neighborhood out of business if it were in New York City. We had planned to walk the couple of miles to get there, but it turns out we didn’t have to. We had not known this last time we were here because we had our own rental, but DYC has not one, but three courtesy cars.

This changed everything. Now, we could top up on propane, get a couple of things at the grocery store, and stop at West Marine before heading out for pizza. When we pulled up to the pizza place, I was shocked and horrified to find that it was closed. It wasn’t “Closed for Monday” closed. It was closed for good closed. From the look of it, they made a hasty exit. Everything was still inside, but the lights were off and a ‘For Lease’ sign was in the window.

Lew, the marina owner, had told us to keep the courtesy car in Deltaville. He explained that it wasn’t so much because he was being possessive, as he just didn’t want us to have to walk too far back to the boat after the car broke down. Although there were a couple of seafood restaurants in town, I had been working on a pizza craving for a couple of days now. There was another pizza place at just the next town, so feeling a bit naughty, we decided to risk it and go.

When we got there, we found it closed, too! In this case, it was the just for Monday variety, but we wouldn’t be here any other day. A quick search on Urban Spoon turned up another pizza place yet one more town away. Maryanne called and got a guy on the phone who said they were in fact open. We didn’t want to chance going any further without being sure.

By that point, we would have been happy with school lunch pizza, so we were quite pleased when it turned out to be delicious and huge. It wasn’t quite Stan String’s, but it was pretty good – probably the best pizza for fifty miles.

We made it back to Deltaville just fine, and even managed to load up on oil filters thirty seconds before the auto parts store (which sells a lot of boat stuff in Deltaville) closed.

Thanks to Charlie of Bay Area Rigging, here posing with Kyle after a job well done

Charlie arrived the next morning. As usual, he was very helpful and attentive and was a fount of knowledge who has clearly already forgotten more than I’ll ever know about rigging. He checked Begonia over and declared the new rigging to still be in good shape. The wire had gone through its initial stretch, so he tensioned everything back up again. He then indulged us by taking rig tension measurements so that we would have objective values to aim for in the future when he’s not around.