A Day On The Boat...

...Beats a day in the office anytime. Went down to Hampton/Newport News this Saturday and dragged the boat with me. I say "dragged" because, even burning premium gas in the explorer, I was averaging just slightly less than 15 miles per gallon. I guess in the grand scheme of things, that's not as bad as a full sized F-150 gets. The weather forecast for the weekend was pretty sad, but I really wanted to get out to the fish haven @ 37.08.220N 76.13.879W and try my luck. Saturday was very cloudy and by around 3 pm the rains set in and then the thunderstorms rolled in for the rest of the evening. I was resigned to believe that Sunday would be a bust too. Sunday morning was very cloudy too, but the radar showed that a line of rain would pass over the area around 10 am and then head out to sea to the Northeast. We got everything packed up and jumped in the car and headed to the public ramp on Dandy Point Road, in Hampton. This is a very handy launching point for heading to the fish haven. When we (the kids and I) got to the ramp, the clouds were still heavy but it wasn't actually raining and the winds were calm. We got the boat launched but it was running very poorly. It seemed that the Accelerator pump on the carbureator (I know I spelled that wrong) was not working as it should. It also was missing and stumbling over quite a wide range of throttle positions. But what the HELL! I have towing insurance!! We headed out and passed by a small island that looked like "party central". There must have been 6 or 8 boats grounded on the beach with all sorts of drinking and partying going on, and this was 10:45 AM !! We continued on out to the fish haven and the seas were rather calm and the air temp was in the upper 70's/Low 80's. We tried fishing with some shrimp and some bloodworms using bottom rigs but Dana was the only one to catch something. She caught a 12 inch (more or less) croaker that we threw back. That was it! We tried anchoring and drifting but nothing was biting. The tide was incoming, so perhaps we should have waited until high tide but oh well.... By the time we stopped fishing and headed back to the party island to go swimming the clouds had thinned and the sun was peeking thru the clouds frequently. We anchored the boat next to the other boats and spent an hour or so walking around the island @37.06.529N 76.17.514W. Most of the island is a bird nesting site that is off-limits to foot traffic but there is a nice sandy end to the south east that is great for hanging out. We got going for the day around 3:30 and was stuck in I-64 traffic by around 4:30. Got back home at around 7:30 PM. That trip normally takes about 1:30 - 1:45. This time it took 3 hours. Damn Yankees! Don't they have their own beaches to go to?