The griping tone of my last post was probably apparent. Still the day ended on a real high note. Scott and Darlene brought their new boat Final Approach into Solomons, MD yesterday afternoon. On board were Paul and Linda. Great to see fellow FHYC members out here on the water. We had a great dinner at the Lighthouse and heard all about the misadventures thus far on their Maiden Voyage aboard Final Apporach.

Everything on the boat smells like gasoline. The new outboard fuel tank built to the latest EPA standards weeps fuel when it builds pressure. Actually the problem is in the little fitting where the fuel hose connects. I however thought it was integral to the tank and started syphoning to empty it so I could exchange it at West Marine. Of course, the hose slipped out and fuel went everywhere. The worst thing is it went over the cooler where we keep our cold drinks on ice.

I cleaned off the top of the cooler, but didn’t imagine that the stuff went inside. This morning, I drained water from the melted ice and noticed a distinct greenish hue and an unpleasant odor. The fuel is for a two cycle engine so has oil in it. Yuck. We have scrubbed everything and sprayed with bleach.

We returned to the boat Saturday and intended to use one day in preparation and depart today. Again, I over estimated how quickly I could accomplish my to-do list and that ran over to today. Of course, the fuel spill added to the time line and then we found the fuel in the cooler this morning, so that would have made a departure very stressful. Tomorrow’s forecast is for windy/choppy conditions, so now we are targeting Wednesday.

Wi-Fi at the marina is sporadic, so while we can check email, doing any heavier duty data work is futile. We grab a signal whenever we can, but probably won’t post more pictures until we have a better connection.

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Check out the "More Photos" link on the right side of the page. It's much easier to view now.

Also there's now a "Follow by Email" box above the links. If you subscribe to this, you will receive an email when the blog is updated. We are looking forward to getting back on the water, watching the weather for this coming Monday to move south.

We are reminded of advice we gave to cruisers on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) about avoiding busy places on weekends and holidays, don’t go. Next time we are in St. Michaels, it will be midweek. After the hoard of local boaters left yesterday, we virtually had the place to ourselves.

Another great day on the water running 6 ½ hours to Solomons and Calvert Marina. Gosh, it’s hard to imagine how wonderful a day can be. The absence of all those big boats in a hurry to get home and/or see how large a wake they can make added considerably to our day.

After arriving and settling in, Lynn commented that despite how small this boat may be, she really feels like home.

We need to dash back to New Bern for a little banking business and when we return we will hit some of the places we skipped as we came north.

Lynn’s Comments:

Our visit to Annapolis was the first on our own boat. Unfamiliar with the mooring fields, we lucked out and found a perfect one for our boat, just north of the Spa Creek Bridge in the St. Mary’s Mooring field, named for the beautiful St. Mary’s Church and High School Campus a few yards away. We were close to a dinghy dock and a short walk to town, in a more protected area than the “big” mooring field, the center of action in Annapolis was just around the corner via Ego Alley, so called because of the boats that cruise in and out with rumbling engines, buff occupants, and loud music blaring. Temperatures were moderate (80’s), and we ate out several times. My favorite was a jerk chicken curry lunch at Pussers.

The St. Mary’s mooring field is picturesque and full of activity. Stand up paddle boarding is popular, along with kayaking, tourist boats, and local boats cruising through (yes, through the mooring field).  One enterprising young woman did a yoga workout on her paddleboard, while a Mom instructed her tiny son to paddle her around on hers. He was grinning from ear to ear.

Annapolis has a convenient dinghy dock at the head of Ego Alley. Trouble is, there are ducks everywhere and as soon as a dinghy is tied up they “flock” on over. Check out George’s photo via the photos link to the right. Before we could depart for lunch, two had tried to settle on ours, he rocked it hard with the painter and they jumped off. Surprisingly when we returned there were no ducks and no duck poo on our vessel, a small miracle to be sure.

Friday we headed for St. Michaels, on the Eastern Shore, a trip of 27 nautical miles. We were last here 28 years ago on our 25^th Anniversary Trip, when we had two sailboats full of friends and spent a week cruising the Chesapeake. The Crab Claw restaurant is still here, having just celebrated its 50^th Anniversary. As George has reported, we had a good visit with the Maryland family, ice cream at Justines, and an early dinner at the Crab Claw. The family time of this cruise has been a wonderful benefit, and the seafood another.

St. Michaels is crowded, busy and charming.  We chose a marina so we could have a nice family visit and there are boats anchored out here, but I want to check out something before we leave, a “back door” to St. Michaels which is on San Domingo Creek on the Choptank, which dead ends on the south side of St. Michaels with a dinghy dock of sorts. You can anchor in this beautiful creek and dinghy in without the crowded anchorage here. The quaint town of Oxford is in that same general area.

Of course not everything is ever perfect when cruising. Our dinghy motor has become temperamental and George has done a good job of cajoling it into service.  Could be that Maryland does not have ethanol free gasoline, or it could be something else.

Tomorrow we are back to Solomons, a favorite spot to be sure.

Yesterday I skipped morning coffee so we didn’t bother other boats in the mooring field with the sound of the generator. We slipped the lines at 0700 and had perfect weather conditions. Boat traffic was another issue altogether. It seems everyone who owned a fishing pole was out on a boat, trolling the area. We veered off the intended course repeatedly to clear their lines even when I had the right of way. I didn’t want them to have to take evasive moves to avoid us.

St. Michael’s on a Saturday is a zoo. I hear nearly every weekend is a special event and dockage is a two night minimum. There were boats galore, cars from all over and at least one tour bus. The Maritime Museum is holding an annual vintage and classic boat festival and there are some truly beautiful ones there.

Our daughter Becky and her family drove over from the western shore to visit and share the day. We walked around down town, had ice cream and a late lunch or early dinner at the Crab Claw.

The evening’s entertainment was the passage of the remnants of tropical storm Bill. We had a lot of rain and lightning but only a brief period of high winds. Prior to the rain band getting to us it was spawning tornados but that risk had abated prior to reaching us. We stayed up watching the radar app on our phones until it was clear the worst was over.

Today we are taking it easy and trying to get caught up on emails and blogs. The internet here at Higgins Yacht Yard is free but it is SLOOOOOOOWWW!. 

Many of the boats that crowded the docks have departed. The dock master say’s they pay for the mandatory two nights but only stay one. Some are probably still working and need to be home on Monday morning. We are cheap and retired. If we pay for dockage, we are darn sure going to use it.

Weather permitting we head back to Solomons tomorrow. We need to make a quick turnaround trip to New Bern to take care of a little business.

Yesterday was a beautiful day to be sailing down the bay with fair winds and following seas. We, however, were motoring up it with wind and waves on the nose. That sapped some of our energy and we were slower than normal. Still we made it in 7 ½ hours from casting off the lines to picking up a ball at St. Mary’s mooring field in Annapolis.

Conditions were moderate at first with wind at 15 kts and 2 to 3 foot seas. The wind abated as we went along. Seas were confused near the mouth of the Choptank, but then laid down nicely. By the time we reached Annapolis there was little wind. We were fine with that but I am sure the Wednesday racers were greatly chagrinned.

After many trips by car and chartering a boat here 28 years ago it is wonderful to have made it on our own little boat. We will hang out here for three nights and hopefully go St. Michaels on Saturday. That will depend on when the remnants of tropical storm Bill passes through. There could be small craft warnings that day. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

St. Michaels has a classic boat rendezvous and exhibit the weekend. We hope to see some pretty boats and get some nice pictures.

There was apparently a barnacle bloom about 3 weeks ago and the greedy little buggers have attached themselves to every bit of exposed metal under the waterline. They are now scraped off and I am looking forward to slightly better performance. The bloom apparently occurs when the water temperature hits 71 deg F, so there is a bloom in the spring or early summer and then again as the water cools in the fall. At least, that’s what I’m told by a local “expert.”

After spending an outrageous $300++ at Reliable Marine (now there is an oxymoron for you) the outboard exhibited the same symptoms we had before. I should have tested it before we left Solomons and I’m sure that when I call to complain they will say, it was fine when it left here. After much tinkering I got it to start and keep running last night, but only after I made a couple of rowing trips to the docks at the Annapolis Yacht Club. Thankfully, we are very close. More finger crossing hoping the motor behaves correctly today. We have a lot of places we want to go.

We came back to the boat a couple of days ago, but didn’t leave the dock because we needed to pick up the outboard and settle up on the new hatch. Both jobs seem to be well done, and we are into the combination for about two boat dollars.

Of course weather windows always seem to breakdown as we get ready to go, and tomorrow’s great weather has now deteriorated. We are still going to break the bond with the dock and shore power. We will probably just anchor in Back Creek again and head north on Wednesday.

We did a boat ride/harbor tour with Becky’s family and her longtime friend Edye. Lots of fun. Both Becky and Edye were in Lynn’s Girl Scout Troop back in the Denver area about a million years ago.

We are provisioned and the next target destination is Annapolis but we’ll get there when we get there. It’s still close enough to see the family occasionally.

We are making good use of our time with the boat at the dock. We took time to do some of the tourist things in Solomons. The Calvert Marine Museum is particularly well done. It is small enough to view in an afternoon, but complete enough to revisit many times to delve deeper into the exhibits. We were truly impressed and will return.

There is so much more there, good boating infrastructure, great restaurants, and a tiki-bar we still need to visit. One small downside is that all gasoline has ethanol. That stuff is very hard on small engine fuel systems. I’m sure it’s a coincidence but our little outboard quit running immediately after filling the tank with new fuel.

We have returned to New Bern for the FHYC meetings next week. We will do some garden/landscaping chores, get caught up on emails, see a few friends and do tons of laundry.

Last year’s hard work and progress on the yard is suffering a bit from neglect, but everything remains alive and will rebound once we are back here on a more regular basis to care for it. We did an afternoon garden walk and Lynn pointed out several things I need to do while we are here. As usual, however, my list is shorter than hers.

Our son-in-law Chuck is checking on the boat every few days. What a reassurance that is for us.

The outboard is in a shop to clean the carburetor ($98/hour labor rate. OUCH!). The new hatch is ordered and should be installed by the time we return. We may have to stay another day or two past our planned departure to make sure we have settled up with the repairs and that everything is working as planned.

Weather permitting we will go as far north as Annapolis before turning south and visiting locations on the eastern shore and working our way back south and eventually home.

This afternoon, John Jackson tied up next to us, FHYC is well represented in the Chesapeake. Their new boat looks nice and he reports it sails great.

There is a little progress on the hatch project. No physical progress, but we now know the model number of the hatch. Hopefully we can locate one at a supplier. If we have to special order, we're looking at three weeks. Fingers crossed.

Lynn's Post:

We had a lovely three nights at anchor, in a very protected spot with good holding, no mosquitoes and no wake boat traffic. The Holiday Inn dinghy dock was a short row to get ashore for a daily $2 fee.  We read, ate from our boat provisions, and moved our sun shade cover from side to side as need be. I think it lowered the temperature in the helm station 8-10 degrees.

 

There was fishing line on the anchor chain when we upped anchor yesterday morning, so George disentangled it while he washed off the mud. We fueled at Solomon’s Landing after deciding that Calvert Marina’s fuel dock looked unattended. Our deck hand there was the same charming lady we met last week. Today she was attired in a strapless pink number with sheer skirt and silvery thong sandals and said she was working to get rid of tan lines. She was efficient in her dock duties, including a pump-out service, and still looked fresh as a daisy as we pulled away.

 

We are now at Calvert Marina’s floating docks, plugged in and washed off from a thunderstorm last night. George has contacted Washburn’s boat yard about our broken forward hatch, and he delivered the outboard to Reliable Marine, who has moved from across-the-bridge to just behind Roy Rodgers restaurant here in Solomons. They say they have the parts and it will be ready when we return from North Carolina. All of these repairs being underway are good news, except for the expense and we are reminded that $1,000 equals one boat dollar.

 

Becky, Chuck and Jack came by last evening and took us to dinner at The Lighthouse.  What a treat, beautiful view, casual atmosphere, delicious food. I had cream of crab soup and a Caesar salad, George had cream of crab and oysters. Thanks for a lovely impromptu evening.

 

The wind has been southerly and warm until today, when it is much cooler and northerly with showers and thunderstorms forecast throughout the day.  Today, if we go anywhere, we will remember to close the overheads in the helm station and the back curtain. We didn’t yesterday and there was a big downpour. We were saved by the angle of the rain, I guess, with just a few sprinkles on the chart table and helm, and just a little rain on the cushioned benches.