Author: BobS

And the weather continues to be amazing. The daytime temps are in the 20s and sunny and nice cool nights for sleeping. Bob and Chris left around  8am for their sail down to Kent Island for Chris to meet with some brokers to look at a couple of boats.

I walked to the village and found a great shop with women’s clothing and accessories. I was there for close to an hour and was the only customer. I had fun trying on stuff and did minimal damage to the pocketbook.

I stopped again and took pictures at the house with the

New England asters covered in monarch butterflies. It made me feel good just watching them.

Bob & Chris had a good outing and got back late afternoon, last night at Rock Hall.

 

 

 

The saga of our holding tank follows, feel free to skip the next long paragraph.

Since our boat until this trip has never been in water where one can open the valve and release the holding tank contents, we didn’t know what would happen the first time that was tried. The answer was, not much. Bob cut the wire/seal on the valve (standard on all boats that stay in fresh water) just before he & Ron headed out to the Jersey coast. Only about  quarter of the tank emptied when Bob opened the valve so we knew we had a potential problem. KYC Bahama gang, can you picture us looking for a Patrick if we couldn’t sort this out. We went to the pump out at the marina this morning and asked if we could leave the valve open with the hope that the suction would pull in some water through the hose and in the process unclog it. It didn’t appear to have worked as the instruments registered  the tank as being 8-10% full once the pump out was done. We have also been putting some septic tank clog treatment stuff we got from Chris into the tank. We left the vent open (don’t report us) when we brought the boat back to the slip and when I checked the instruments a couple of hours later – Bob had put some more of the anti clog stuff in the tank – the instruments showed 0-1% – yea! It appears no one will have to go diving to unclog us. It’s not a big issue on the ICW as there are pump outs but there aren’t any in the Bahamas and the holding tank is not that big.

We walked to the village to pick up a few groceries and look around. It’s a small village and quite a few places were closed, being a Monday, but also by October many shops/restaurants are open only Th/Fri/Sat. There was a plaque saying the village had been established in the mid 1600s and George Washington had passed through the village eight times.

We’ve decided to stay here until Wednesday morning, the third night is free:) Bob and Chris are going for a trip to a place down the bay tomorrow to look at a couple of boats, Chris is thinking of replacing his boat with maybe a trawler or motor yacht.

It was a cool calm night at the anchorage, we were off a bit before 8am to Rock Hall Landing Marina on the eastern side of the Chesapeake, about 30 nm.

The winds were forecast to be very light but we were able to sail for the first couple of hours once we came out to the bay even though the winds were flukey. It was a beautiful sunny day, we have been so lucky with the weather, I’m almost afraid to put that in print.

The Marina is very comfortable, plenty of showers and wifi that actually reaches out to the boat. There is also a good restaurant right beside our dock so that’s where we ate tonight. We’re probably staying here for two nights.

It was a very pleasant evening at the anchorage yesterday, we got there around 5pm. We kept the dinghy in the water and Bob picked Chris up for afternoon G&Ts on Finnish Line. The anchorage was very quiet, just one other boat was there for the night.

We got off to an early start, 7am, to make sure we were leaving at high tide although our track out was at the deeper part of the channel in the harbour. The winds and waves started picking up after about an hour on the water and kept building up to 20 knot gusts, ok for Bob & Chris, not so much fun for me the wimp. We thought there might be a lot of ship traffic but there were just two barges, one passed us and the other one was going east into the canal.

It was a four hour trip and once we turned into the Sassafras River things started to calm down a bit. The challenge there and at the turn to the river was avoiding all the crab pots. Chris checked out the first potential anchorage but there wasn’t much protection from the north wind so we went further down the river and anchored at Ordinary Point, not descriptive of the location, it was very pretty. Although we were much more protected, we dropped anchor around 11am, the gusts kept up until late afternoon. Bob took a look at the weather forecast once we were anchored and there were small craft wind warnings all along the eastern seaboard, including the Chesapeake, for all of today. We knew it was supposed to bit windy today but I don’t think yesterday’s forecast had small craft warnings for today – go figure.

We rowed over to Even Keel for a late afternoon visit, the winds had really calmed down by then and it was hardly a long distance to row. I think this was the first time we’ve had all three meals on board. We had half the tenderloin I got at Loblaws the day before we left – the freezer has worked very well, it’s small but mighty.

It was an innocent enough start to the day, our first cooler night and morning. Took our time to have our morning coffee and then got ready to leave. We needed to head out before low tide, which we thought was round 11am, turns out it was around 12;30pm but even that didn’t help us out. Even Keel was ahead of us on the dock so Chris was the first to leave around 10am. He had barely turned out of the dock when the boat was stuck in mud. The charts were sooooooooo wrong. We got a line from Even Keel to us and tried to pull him off but it was truly a lost cause. We realized that we too were sitting on the bottom, although at dock. Bob did some checking of the tide tables and found out we had arrived at high tide, hence all seemed ok. In the picture where Even Keel is sitting, the charts say he is in 27 feet of water!

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Both Chris and Bob called Boat US, Chris was toed off and made his way to the anchorage which has lots of water. Because we were at a dock they would not tow us without an extra fee, only $700. We thought waiting for high tide, around 6pm, was a good alternate plan. We’ll move over to the anchorage for the night at high tide and leave early tomorrow;  attempt number two to visit the Sassafras River.

We were told that on this trip it was not a matter of if you get stuck but when. We just didn’t imagine we’d get stuck at dock. We took the dinghy down for the first time and Bob went for a ride to visit Chris at the anchorage.

 

It was really nice not to be taking off anywhere this morning. We sussed out a local diner for breakfast – the Bohemian Cafe & Bakery. It was more of a greasy spoon than a bakery but we had a great server and delish greasy breakfasts all around. Once we got back to the boat Bob & Ron prepared the first Coretto to which we also invited Chris. After a sip, I was glad to donate my share of the Coretto to whoever wants it, the three guys seemed very happy with the result.

Chris & I did a liquor store and grocery run in Ron’s car while Ron packed. It was not much of a grocery store but I stocked up on gin and tonic water as G&T has become our late afternoon drink of choice. Kathryn, I’m sorry you had to read that last sentence. While Chris I were away, a very large tanker went by on the canal, it was called Heroic Leader – we figure it has to be from North Korea. Ron left a bit before noon, he was great company and a big help to Bob since I declined to do the Jersey coast and the Delaware. Based on Bob’s  comments on yesterday’s post, he and Ron had a good time coming up the Delaware.

We, read Bob, did some much needed cleaning of the outside of the boat and chilled a bit. Dinner on board tonight, we didn’t need much after that huge breakfast.

 

The Catalinas we’re off at 7am, there’s a bit of fog but visibility is pretty good. It was pretty windy last night bit seemed to have calmed down a bit by early morning. The guys picked out a place to pull into in case the weather turns nasty. If the weather report can be believed, it should be ok-ish.

More to come on the blog later today. I’m going to have breakfast downtown and meander a bit. I won’t head out of town until later this afternoon when I hear how the sailors are progressing. 

There were 2 55′ bridges to pass under before Delaware Bay. Our mast is 55′ above the water. We approached very slowly at low tide and our antennae just brushed the bridge.   No problems on the second bridge. Although foggish we had good winds and by mid-morning the sun was out and we had a marvellous sail charging up Delaware Bay slowly releasing the reefs until the last few miles when with the winds on our nose we took the sails down. There was lots of commercial shipping. Here’s a pic of our fellow Catalina 355 being passed by a freighter. 30 minutes later this freighter was overtaken by an even larger freighter.

Turning into the canal we had an hour and a half at 7.5+ knots as we rode the tide to Chesapeake City. Arrived about 4:30 onto a city dock. Dockage free but one pays for electricity and water if consumed. Chesapeake City is a charming Victorian town (at just 700 people if can’t be a city) with some very fine dining.

Also had a call from our boat insurance company who were very apologetic about the southerly restriction they put on us. They have removed the restriction so we can now venture down the ICW in October rather than December (can you spell warmer) and keep our booked slip in Ft Pierce FL. I guess complaining helps! 

We started the morning with bacon and Finnish pancakes and many mugs of coffee.

Ron, Bob & I walked into town for the afternoon. We saw lots of interesting houses on the walk but the really beautiful Victorian type houses, all wood with large porches, are in the small downtown area. Many of them are now B&Bs. There is also quite a large pedestrian mall so very pleasant to walk around. There were still lots of tourists in town, we all agreed that the summer months would not be a good time to be here.

 

After lunch we walked down to the beach, and watched the rollers break on the shore and boogie boarders and surfers catching the waves. When we got back to the marina, my Fitbit sid we’d walked 10.4km.

We had dinner at another Cape Cod institution, Lucky Bones Backwater Grill and then fairly early to bed. The boats need to be off by 7am to catch the low tide in order to clear the bridge at the entrance to the canal. Using the canal saves going around the point of Cape May.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob and Ron got off to an early start to head for Cape May while I lounged about at the hotel until checkout time.

It was a pleasant drive to Cape May, I got here around 5pm. Chris, on Even Keel, our Catalina twin, had arrived a couple of hours before that. He came from Atlantic City, we’ll be travelling together for a while now. Finnish Line pulled in around 5:30.  They reported it was a pretty easy trip, mostly motor sailing and they ran into some fog but it wasn’t really dense. We’ll be here for two nights so tomorrow will be a chill and check out Cape May City day.

After drinks on Even Keel, we decided to have dinner at a Cape May institution, the Lobster House, which is about a two minute walk from the marina. The mains were good, sadly Ron reported he’d had much better martinis:)

 

 

 

 

 

The formal change of crew took place this morning. Ron and Bob left about 9:30 and the laundry bag and I left in Ron’s car shortly after. The laundromat had wifi so I could entertain myself 🙂 I’m staying at a hotel about a one hour drive from Cape May.

Their plan, weather permitting, was to anchor at Barnegat Bay, about an eight hour motor/sail, from Great Kills Harbour, which they did. Bob said getting into to the somewhat narrow bay entrance against a two knot current was a bit of a challenge. He may went to add some details about their part of the trip.

They plan to be underway tomorrow by 7am at the latest – again weather permitting, they should reach Cape May around 6 pm.