A week after leaving Annapolis we found ourselves anchored in Selby Bay, about 4 miles south of where we were anchored in Annapolis. At that rate we aren't going to get south before winter arrives! Actually this morning we are wondering if we may have left it too late. Over the past week the nights have been getting cooler and we've been waking up many mornings to find dew on the deck and condensation on the inside of the hatch in our cabin. The days have also been getting cooler and for the past few days we have been back to our Nova Scotia fall sailing uniform including toque, boots, gloves, lots of fleece and sometimes rain gear. Last night it was 13 deg C in the main cabin (even with candles and kerosene lamps on and after cooking supper) and when we woke up this morning it was 8 deg C and 2 deg C in the cockpit. So today we are sailing south towards Solomons, Maryland after a great week of cruising back and forth from the Eastern Shore to the Western Shore around Annapolis.
We had decided to explore a bit while we waited for some packages of spare parts and stuff to arrive at our new friend Matthew's house just south of Annapolis. After spending last Friday night anchored in the Corsica River near Centreville, the next day we set off back across Chesapeake Bay to the Magothy River, just north of the Bay Bridges. It was an overcast day but after motoring into the wind for a while we were able to sail across the bay which was fun. It is still mind boggling to us how many boats there are around here, epecially sailboats. It looked like someone had organized a club cruise to the Chester River from Annapolis because as we were going down the Chester we saw about 30 or 40 sailboats sailng up, and we heard a lot of radio chatter. Actually the radio chatter was almost unbearable - I guess that is what weekends in the Chesapeake are like normally - non stop. We spent a noisy night anchored in behind Dobbins Island in the Magothy because the wind came up and we were in some chop and the dinghy chock was squeaking all night. The first thing I did when I got up the next morning was move the dinghy line somewhere else!
We went for a short walk on Dobbins Island, which was interesting because it was sandy beach on the north side and sheer cliffs on the south side, and then set off for a great sail south over to Eastern Bay. There was a lot to see, as it was a beautiful sunny day and there were a ton of sailboat races going on along with the rest of the pleasure boats around, and a few tugs and barges just to keep us on our toes. Unfortunately we weren't close enough to the races to get any decent photos, but the spinnaker runs were very colourful and fantastic to see. The wind died later on that afternoon and we motored up into the Wye River on the Eastern Shore, admiring the scenery and the beautiful homes along the shore as we went. We anchored in Dividing Creek, a lovely creek in Wye Island where there is a Nature reserve. We saw a racoon, some herons and quite a few hawks or ospreys and it wa a beautiful evening. Best of all it was calm and quiet that night so we got a great sleep.
We spent the next day in Dividing Creek and went for a big walk on a 'trail' which ended up being all around the edge of some fields - interesting enough but not really what I expected. We also met some more boaters - some Canadians and some locals - and got more hints on places to go and traded stories and adventures.
Tuesday we headed for St. Michaels, on a mission to get some things done. Thanks to the generosity of some strangers we were in luck. I was able to get a couple of loads of laundry done when the fellow at the marina where we got our pumpout done said we could use their laundry machines 'since they weren't busy' and we were able to get showers when a fellow boater got us and another couple in to the showers at the Maritime Museum with his membership. We also got in to the museum for free, which was a real treat as there is a lot to see. I was particularly interested in the exhibit they had about Tugboats and in the lighthouse, which they cut in half and barged to the museum when it was going to be demolished for a modern light.
For some reason it hadn't occurred to me before that all these strange lighthouse looking structures we have been seeing since about New York state actually were manned lighthouses at one time. It's really odd to be cruising along and see this brick building on stilts out in the middle of a bay somewhere, but at one time someone actually lived there in order to tend the light. At the museum there were some excerpts from papers back in the late 1800s where one of the lights had been out for almost a week so they 'feared for the lighthouse keeper's life as he must be ill enough that he was unable to light the light'.
In St. Michaels the grocery store is quite a short walk from the dinghy dock, so we loaded up on some pop and a few other groceries to take advantage of that. Even so the five minute walk was a long one when carrying heavy bags and packs! We even managed to get to the library (also a short walk) and get an hour on wifi to take care of a few things, which was very nice. They were very friendly - when I called them they said "come on down", and they were nicely set up with good tables and chairs and plugs, so we had a productive hour. We are still trying to figure out a solution for wifi and we're toying with the idea of getting a wifi antenna booster for the boat, but we're not quite there yet.
By the time we got back to the boat that night it was after dark and we were pretty tired out but unfortunately we were woken up again by the wind at around 3 a.m. Luckily it only lasted for a couple of hours and by morning it had calmed down but was raining a bit. The rain soon stopped and after spending the morning taking care of a few things on the boat and doing some route planning we decided to head back over to the other side of the Bay to pick up our parcels.
We had to motor across because there wasn't much wind but we made it across to Selby Bay (4 miles south of Annapolis) and anchored just before five that evening. We had arranged to have Matthew out to the boat for supper, so when he got home from work Dave went in and picked him (and our parcels) up in the dinghy. We had a nice visit and Dave took him back to shore later that evening. He had generously offered to lend us his truck the next day so we decided to take him up on the offer.
People often ask us what we do all day when we are cruising, so here is an example of what we cruisers might do if they find themselves with access to a vehicle near a sailing mecca. Get up and eat breakfast. Plan and triage the day and look up addresses of places we want to go. Dinghy in to shore and scramble onto dinghy dock. Secure and lock dinghy. Walk along beach, hop over stream and up the road to friend's house and change from boots into shoes. Take truck and drive to Back Creek, using the iPhone to navigate (love the iPhone). Find Yanmar engine parts supplier and manage to get two out of the three parts we are looking for (the other one was not in stock). Wander around yacht yard looking for marine electronics place that is in building 5. Find said place with very helpful fellow who lends you a cable and spare wind transducer so you can test things out. Go to MacDonalds for lunch (because they have wifi). Finally get iTunes software sorted out and activated on new laptop. Download a couple of podcasts, very slowly. Go to very swanky mall with a Bed Bath and Beyond and look at SodaStreams. Deliberate about whether one would work on the boat. Jury still out, so don't buy one. Go to Whole Foods to stock up. After five minutes, realize this is a great store for produce and fresh stuff, but not the place to buy Kraft Dinner and Miracle Whip. Buy a few things and head out of swanky mall. Drive back to dinghy dock. Dinghy out to boat. Try out wind instrument with test equipment. It works. Go up mast and attach wind instrument. It works. Come back down mast. Dinghy back to shore, secure and lock dinghy. Head back towards Back Creek to return test equipment. Stop at grocery store to buy wine for helpful guy at marine electronics place. No wine there, but liquor store four doors down. Buy wine and rum. Drive to marine electronics place and return test equipment along with bottle of wine. Drive back to grocery store. Buy bulky and heavy items. Drive back to dinghy dock. It's rush hour so this takes a while. Unload groceries and put them in dinghy. Drive truck back to friend's house. Attempt to open garage door to no avail. Call friend. No luck with door, so you can't get truck in garage or get boots from garage. Good news is that the last parcel has arrived and is on the front door. Walk down road to avoid stream on the way back to dinghy. Scramble off dock onto dinghy. Dinghy out to boat. Unload and stow groceries and parcels. By this time it is 6 p.m. Have a drink and a snack. When friend gets home from work dinghy in to get boats, have a glass of wine and a tour of house (Dave). Get cold and hungry and eat supper while waiting for husband to come back (Jane).
That's how we spent our day yesterday. I am writing this as we sail today. You may have gathered from above that we are having some issues with one of our instruments. In fact the only upgrade that we made to the boat before we set off on this trip that has not met or exceeded our expectations is our new Raymarine instruments. Since the day we entered the C & D canal our wind speed has not been working and since we left Havre de Grace our knot meter has not worked. We also could not figure out how to turn off the shallow water alarm on our depth sounder when we were in shallow water, which was incredibly annoying when we had to silence it about every 10 seconds or so whenever we were in less than 10 feet. We think the wind speed is fixed now. Dave went up the mast and took the transducer off and found the connection full of water, so he let it dry out for a few days and then did the test yesterday and it worked. It is now back up there with a freshly greased O-ring, so we are hoping that will take care of it.
Our knotmeter still doesn't work and someone we ran into mentions that he calls the instruments 'Praymarine' because he prays that they will work, and that the sensor wheel is too small so it jams up easily with anything that grows on the hull. We're waiting for a nice warm day so Dave can go in the water and give it a really good cleaning to see if that fixes it, but we are concerned that it may be an on-going issue. The Raymarine folks at the boat show were less than helpful, but luckily the fellow we went to yesterday was very helpful so that give us some hope. Right now
Raymarine is getting the thumbs down from the Romana crew. Dave is sorry he didn't bring our 30 year old Datamarine instruments with us as spares now. It's kind of surprising, because at least 50% of the boats we saw at the boat show had Raymarine instruments on board, so I can't believe they are so poorly designed.
Taking photos for our Boat Views page is proving to be quite a challenge on some days. Many times the things that are interesting are just too difficult to photograph when you are underway - the horizon is so big and things are so small when you take pictures that they just don't turn out well. And some days we are doing a bunch of things off the boat and it is tough to remember to take a photo from the boat that might work (you'll see my pathetic contribution of St. Michael's at night and anyone paying close attention may notice that there was one day in Annapolis that I didn't get a photo). However it has also been fun to try to come up with things to photograph when faced with days of cruising along surrounded by water and a distant shore, so that is cool. Hopefully people are enjoying the project.
This blog entry will probably get sent from Solomons as we are anticipating spending a day there with a forecast of moderate SW winds which would be on the nose and no fun to motor in to. Then we're back to north and west winds which will be good to head south so hopefully the longer term forecast is right.
We had decided to explore a bit while we waited for some packages of spare parts and stuff to arrive at our new friend Matthew's house just south of Annapolis. After spending last Friday night anchored in the Corsica River near Centreville, the next day we set off back across Chesapeake Bay to the Magothy River, just north of the Bay Bridges. It was an overcast day but after motoring into the wind for a while we were able to sail across the bay which was fun. It is still mind boggling to us how many boats there are around here, epecially sailboats. It looked like someone had organized a club cruise to the Chester River from Annapolis because as we were going down the Chester we saw about 30 or 40 sailboats sailng up, and we heard a lot of radio chatter. Actually the radio chatter was almost unbearable - I guess that is what weekends in the Chesapeake are like normally - non stop. We spent a noisy night anchored in behind Dobbins Island in the Magothy because the wind came up and we were in some chop and the dinghy chock was squeaking all night. The first thing I did when I got up the next morning was move the dinghy line somewhere else!
We went for a short walk on Dobbins Island, which was interesting because it was sandy beach on the north side and sheer cliffs on the south side, and then set off for a great sail south over to Eastern Bay. There was a lot to see, as it was a beautiful sunny day and there were a ton of sailboat races going on along with the rest of the pleasure boats around, and a few tugs and barges just to keep us on our toes. Unfortunately we weren't close enough to the races to get any decent photos, but the spinnaker runs were very colourful and fantastic to see. The wind died later on that afternoon and we motored up into the Wye River on the Eastern Shore, admiring the scenery and the beautiful homes along the shore as we went. We anchored in Dividing Creek, a lovely creek in Wye Island where there is a Nature reserve. We saw a racoon, some herons and quite a few hawks or ospreys and it wa a beautiful evening. Best of all it was calm and quiet that night so we got a great sleep.
We spent the next day in Dividing Creek and went for a big walk on a 'trail' which ended up being all around the edge of some fields - interesting enough but not really what I expected. We also met some more boaters - some Canadians and some locals - and got more hints on places to go and traded stories and adventures.
Tuesday we headed for St. Michaels, on a mission to get some things done. Thanks to the generosity of some strangers we were in luck. I was able to get a couple of loads of laundry done when the fellow at the marina where we got our pumpout done said we could use their laundry machines 'since they weren't busy' and we were able to get showers when a fellow boater got us and another couple in to the showers at the Maritime Museum with his membership. We also got in to the museum for free, which was a real treat as there is a lot to see. I was particularly interested in the exhibit they had about Tugboats and in the lighthouse, which they cut in half and barged to the museum when it was going to be demolished for a modern light.
For some reason it hadn't occurred to me before that all these strange lighthouse looking structures we have been seeing since about New York state actually were manned lighthouses at one time. It's really odd to be cruising along and see this brick building on stilts out in the middle of a bay somewhere, but at one time someone actually lived there in order to tend the light. At the museum there were some excerpts from papers back in the late 1800s where one of the lights had been out for almost a week so they 'feared for the lighthouse keeper's life as he must be ill enough that he was unable to light the light'.
In St. Michaels the grocery store is quite a short walk from the dinghy dock, so we loaded up on some pop and a few other groceries to take advantage of that. Even so the five minute walk was a long one when carrying heavy bags and packs! We even managed to get to the library (also a short walk) and get an hour on wifi to take care of a few things, which was very nice. They were very friendly - when I called them they said "come on down", and they were nicely set up with good tables and chairs and plugs, so we had a productive hour. We are still trying to figure out a solution for wifi and we're toying with the idea of getting a wifi antenna booster for the boat, but we're not quite there yet.
By the time we got back to the boat that night it was after dark and we were pretty tired out but unfortunately we were woken up again by the wind at around 3 a.m. Luckily it only lasted for a couple of hours and by morning it had calmed down but was raining a bit. The rain soon stopped and after spending the morning taking care of a few things on the boat and doing some route planning we decided to head back over to the other side of the Bay to pick up our parcels.
We had to motor across because there wasn't much wind but we made it across to Selby Bay (4 miles south of Annapolis) and anchored just before five that evening. We had arranged to have Matthew out to the boat for supper, so when he got home from work Dave went in and picked him (and our parcels) up in the dinghy. We had a nice visit and Dave took him back to shore later that evening. He had generously offered to lend us his truck the next day so we decided to take him up on the offer.
People often ask us what we do all day when we are cruising, so here is an example of what we cruisers might do if they find themselves with access to a vehicle near a sailing mecca. Get up and eat breakfast. Plan and triage the day and look up addresses of places we want to go. Dinghy in to shore and scramble onto dinghy dock. Secure and lock dinghy. Walk along beach, hop over stream and up the road to friend's house and change from boots into shoes. Take truck and drive to Back Creek, using the iPhone to navigate (love the iPhone). Find Yanmar engine parts supplier and manage to get two out of the three parts we are looking for (the other one was not in stock). Wander around yacht yard looking for marine electronics place that is in building 5. Find said place with very helpful fellow who lends you a cable and spare wind transducer so you can test things out. Go to MacDonalds for lunch (because they have wifi). Finally get iTunes software sorted out and activated on new laptop. Download a couple of podcasts, very slowly. Go to very swanky mall with a Bed Bath and Beyond and look at SodaStreams. Deliberate about whether one would work on the boat. Jury still out, so don't buy one. Go to Whole Foods to stock up. After five minutes, realize this is a great store for produce and fresh stuff, but not the place to buy Kraft Dinner and Miracle Whip. Buy a few things and head out of swanky mall. Drive back to dinghy dock. Dinghy out to boat. Try out wind instrument with test equipment. It works. Go up mast and attach wind instrument. It works. Come back down mast. Dinghy back to shore, secure and lock dinghy. Head back towards Back Creek to return test equipment. Stop at grocery store to buy wine for helpful guy at marine electronics place. No wine there, but liquor store four doors down. Buy wine and rum. Drive to marine electronics place and return test equipment along with bottle of wine. Drive back to grocery store. Buy bulky and heavy items. Drive back to dinghy dock. It's rush hour so this takes a while. Unload groceries and put them in dinghy. Drive truck back to friend's house. Attempt to open garage door to no avail. Call friend. No luck with door, so you can't get truck in garage or get boots from garage. Good news is that the last parcel has arrived and is on the front door. Walk down road to avoid stream on the way back to dinghy. Scramble off dock onto dinghy. Dinghy out to boat. Unload and stow groceries and parcels. By this time it is 6 p.m. Have a drink and a snack. When friend gets home from work dinghy in to get boats, have a glass of wine and a tour of house (Dave). Get cold and hungry and eat supper while waiting for husband to come back (Jane).
That's how we spent our day yesterday. I am writing this as we sail today. You may have gathered from above that we are having some issues with one of our instruments. In fact the only upgrade that we made to the boat before we set off on this trip that has not met or exceeded our expectations is our new Raymarine instruments. Since the day we entered the C & D canal our wind speed has not been working and since we left Havre de Grace our knot meter has not worked. We also could not figure out how to turn off the shallow water alarm on our depth sounder when we were in shallow water, which was incredibly annoying when we had to silence it about every 10 seconds or so whenever we were in less than 10 feet. We think the wind speed is fixed now. Dave went up the mast and took the transducer off and found the connection full of water, so he let it dry out for a few days and then did the test yesterday and it worked. It is now back up there with a freshly greased O-ring, so we are hoping that will take care of it.
Our knotmeter still doesn't work and someone we ran into mentions that he calls the instruments 'Praymarine' because he prays that they will work, and that the sensor wheel is too small so it jams up easily with anything that grows on the hull. We're waiting for a nice warm day so Dave can go in the water and give it a really good cleaning to see if that fixes it, but we are concerned that it may be an on-going issue. The Raymarine folks at the boat show were less than helpful, but luckily the fellow we went to yesterday was very helpful so that give us some hope. Right now
Raymarine is getting the thumbs down from the Romana crew. Dave is sorry he didn't bring our 30 year old Datamarine instruments with us as spares now. It's kind of surprising, because at least 50% of the boats we saw at the boat show had Raymarine instruments on board, so I can't believe they are so poorly designed.
Taking photos for our Boat Views page is proving to be quite a challenge on some days. Many times the things that are interesting are just too difficult to photograph when you are underway - the horizon is so big and things are so small when you take pictures that they just don't turn out well. And some days we are doing a bunch of things off the boat and it is tough to remember to take a photo from the boat that might work (you'll see my pathetic contribution of St. Michael's at night and anyone paying close attention may notice that there was one day in Annapolis that I didn't get a photo). However it has also been fun to try to come up with things to photograph when faced with days of cruising along surrounded by water and a distant shore, so that is cool. Hopefully people are enjoying the project.
This blog entry will probably get sent from Solomons as we are anticipating spending a day there with a forecast of moderate SW winds which would be on the nose and no fun to motor in to. Then we're back to north and west winds which will be good to head south so hopefully the longer term forecast is right.