Saturday 26 October 2013

Solomons Island-Norfolk

Well we've had a fabulous week, although the temperature has dropped considerably. The locals tell us that its been colder than normal, just our luck, but they should start to get warmer over the next few days. Definitely time to get moving more south.



We spent a few days in the beautiful anchorage or Solomons Island, such an amazing little waterway at the mouth of the Patuxent River. Lots of boats tucked in there, many that we have met somewhere along the way - 80% of us Canadians!



SOLOMONS ISLAND ancorage



We made our way into California via city bus for a few groceries and an attempt at replacing our VHF remote mic for the radio that has decided to pack it in. Getting home turned out to be more of a challenge and ended up sharing a cab back to the boat.

view from our bus ride to California, looking down to Patuxent River
We went by to invite the crew of Sea Angel over for sun downers to find Brian crabbing off the bow, with one keeper in the bucket and a huge smile on his face!  We were pleasantly surprise when they brought it to share with us after Anne had cooked and cleaned it, a wonderful treat, thanks guys!!

Brian was a tiny bit intimidated by that feisty little crab in the bucket! 


Just a quick note on this  "poor boys" crabbing. We haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it's on our list.
We've been told this is how you do it...
involves a string, a piece of meat or fat, and some patience. Place the string with the meat tied to it down until the meat is sitting on the bottom, when you feel the crab start to walk away with the bait you slowly start to pull him up. As he gets close to the surface have your net ready because he will let go when he sees his fate approaching. yum, yum!

Tasty treat 

Making the decision early on not to be in a rush or on a schedule helped us turn back from  some very  uncomfortable seas.  Beating hard into the waves for 7 hours when we didn't have to didn't make much sense or sound fun, even though as a sailor it did feel a little like defeat.
5 boats had headed out of the anchorage, with 4 for us returning a few hours later. A lot of like minded cruisers.
We did spend some fun time playing around in the bay with great wind and no waves, great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

For the first time since we have owned the boat I'm experiencing some mold growth around in different places which is quite disconcerting. Talking to fellow boaters I realize I'm not the only one, but now to tackle the problem and keep up on top of it.

Our trip the next day, now had the light wind behind, was a sunny tranquil trip into Mill Creek. Another awesome anchorage, tucked way back with a very narrow entrance in and only a few other boats.


MILL CREEK ANCHORAGE


Next stop was into Jackson Creek (Deltaville) where we fueled up took on some water then headed to the free dock where Sea Angel, already tied up, helped us settle in. Managed a bike ride into "town", actually passed another West Marine so ordered that new cock pit radio, to be picked up in North Carolina.

Auto pilot

Entrance into Jackson Creek

Morning on the dock in Deltaville, getting ready to push off

Al's quite fascinated by all the Pelican's we are starting to see, I think it's reminding him that warmer weather is in our near future. 
Off to Hampton which is just across the way from Norfolk. Great sail but cold and raining. Almost at the mouth of the Chesapeake and it's a bit sad that this part of our trip is nearly over.

Gourmet lunch on the move - Peanut Butter and Jam
Norfolk is a huge Navy base with too many vessels to count. While entering Willoughby Bay we had the exciting privilege to experience an aircraft carrier transiting out of its berth towards the Atlantic, pretty awesome.




Anchored for the night, hiding from the rain and wind down below with some good wine and a movie.

We've been here in Norfolk for the past few days, catching up on laundry and cleaning as well as being a tourist. We actually made it to Portsmouth and Virginia Beach in one day (all for $3.50 each) via ferries, trains and buses, what a day!  Although still cold, the sun is out again and we are enjoying beautiful fall days.

View of the shore line traveling into Elizabeth River

"Haven" at the dock in Norfolk

This is a picture that I took, really! USS Wisconsin at dock permanently as a museum docked at Nauticus in downtown Norfolk 

HISTORIC OLD TOWN PORTSMOUTH

Making our way back to the little walk on ferry from Portsmouth to Norfolk

Virginia Beach

We decided to take advantage of the free dock in Portsmouth overnight.  Taking another walk around town and wanting to get some groceries. Turns out we need to pay more attention to the Active Captain website, as we stumbled across a great little Marine store called Mile Mark "0" with the owners offering free rides to pretty much anywhere you need to get to for provisioning - liquor, beer, groceries etc. How awesome.  
We hadn't had lunch yet and they were waiting for another couple who had made a time arrangement for departure so off to lunch we went with plans to meet back at 2:30pm. Our lunch at "Segundo" Pizza was absolutely wonderful, amazing food and service and all for a fabulous price. Lunch took longer than we had thought and when Pete, the general manager and fellow boater, found out we were going to miss our ride he very kindly passed over his keys to his car. Can't describe how these kinds of gestures make us feel. Almost hard to wrap our heads around it. Thanks Pete!

One of the best Pizza'a we have had so far! On Court Street one block West of High Street

Line up, ALL Canadian boats at the free dock with "Haven" at the front

"Haven" and "Vita"
We are heading to the lock opening into the Dismal Swamp in the morning.

Bye for now, stay tuned.








Saturday 19 October 2013

Magothy River


Cool and grey with rain on and off, we tucked into Magothy Marina on the Magothy River just north of Annapolis. We settled in to get some work done – more laundry and cleaning as well as Al catching up on some boat maintenance.  We planned on spending the week here, taking in the boat show and Washington DC.  Lovely marina, put on are radar by Rob and Serena from our Trenton yacht Club who are also spending time here.  Fabulous marina, new and clean with alot of  friendly folks around. Close enough to Annapolis and good prices to be at the dock for the week.

rain, rain go away!

We were able to use are bikes to travel around as amenities were a bit of a distance away.
Renting a car for a few days helped do some errands and of coarse get into DC without any hassle’s. We found a place to buy a couple of metal slides for our new sails to replace the plastic ones that were put on by "mistake" and of coarse blew apart when we were under sail. Now to sew them in.

Friday we headed into the Annapolis boat show. Cool weather and rain in the forecast but off we went.
The show was great.  Annapolis is really a cool place, again full of history and an amazing gathering of businesses supporting the marine lifestyle.  Dodging the rain we made it around to probably 80% for the booths. I also made it on to view some of the sailboats – if only we would win the lottery!
I made the mistake of wearing my wellies without socks



Gathered lots of great ideas and information yet we still held off on buying the watermaker. Although we didn't come away empty handed!



I know it’s probably not the best time to visit Washington DC, as I’m sure all of you have heard about the federal shut down.  We had talked about visiting there before leaving Ontario, so being so close we just had to go.

Although disappointing due to all the federal buildings, monuments, memorials etc. including Smithsonian museums, being closed down we had a fabulous time!




We walked and walked covering an amazing amount of ground. Through the city, White House, down to the Lincoln Memorial, through the “Mall” ending at Capital Hill. Still lots of visitors but we were told that it is much quieter than normal.


cello players vs. sharp shooters??


What we did end up getting to experience were different groups of people staging protests in different areas.
We stumbled along one at the Lincoln Memorial where folks were attempting to pull back barricades to gain access, having words with the police officers who were there to maintain peace (zap straps in hand).  So, my first protest, well not really. We stayed back from the ruckus but ready with camera .  Not much ended up happening so we moved on. Some areas said closed but yet people were moving the barriers out of the way  and walking on.


Reflection pool, Washington Monument then Capital Hill

Lincoln Memorial

Al disappeared to look for washrooms in the park. After he had left I asked one of the officers where the closest restrooms were only to be told that all the ones in the park are closed also due to shutdown. I stared to get concerned when Al had taken too long to come back, I was confident that he was probably arrested for public indecency.  A short time later he  came around the corner shaking his head and laughing.  Yes, he did end up peeing in the trees but only following the crowd. Turns out when he had finally found a restroom, locked and the official notice on the door, there was also a form of protest going on with piles of human excrement left outside the doors! We spared you the photo!

Well many miles on our shoes. A couple of beers and smoked chicken wings (yum!) we made our way back to the hotel and called it a night.



Vietnam Memorial
Capital Hill


The next day we walked around Chinatown and more of the down town area then headed out for a drive. Made it to The Pentagon to walk through the beautiful memorial erected in honour the 185 people that died on this site on Sept 11, 2001.

lunch!

Pentagon Memorial, there are 185 "floating" benches, one for each person killed, placed in a time line from the year they were born. The wall of the Pentagon that the plane went into is in the background.

I was surprised that DC as a whole is not that pretty of a place, when you broke off from the main downtown area. Lots of garbage, rundown real estate and homeless. You would think that Mr. Obama would take better care of his own backyard. 

Trying to navigate back to the boat our GPS decided to become possessed  and took us on quite a tour doing circles around Washington over and over again.   These machines get very squirrely when massive construction and roadwork is underway. Finally made it back still in under 1 hour.

Monday turned into more errands and boat work including me going up the mast to investigate our furling. Not my favorite thing to do but made it, trusting my skipper not to let me fall.
I prepared a fabulous THANKSGIVING dinner. OK, no turkey, but my chicken filled in wonderfully. We had all the fixings including stuffing, gravy, squash and of coarse pumpkin pie (store bought). We sure missed our family that day and especially Sonja's fabulous homemade pies! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. You were all thought of.

yes, that's me up there!!


Thanksgiving feast

Fall definitely feels like it is settling in, cool breezes, sunshine and the smell of wood fires burning.  More biking on Tuesday before we secured them back on the boat and enjoyed  happy hour with Rob and Serena from "Vita" as we were both heading out on Wednesday.





We ended up only going into Annapolis and anchored for the night outside the Naval Academy. Great to experience the capital of Maryland without the chaos of the boat show.






Bye for now.







Monday 14 October 2013

Baltimore

1st swim in the Chesapeake, Sept 30th
When we left Chesapeake City we stopped for the night in a little anchorage just south +/- west (not sure) of the C & D canal called Still Pond Creek. Beautiful little spot but a bit tough to get into, dodging crab traps and also a narrow shallow opening.  After we scraped the bottom in what was suppose to be 7 feet of water we talked to a local who told us there had been some shoaling in the area. No harm done. Set the anchor and had a fabulous night. Went to shore by the coast guard building and went for a quick walk - country road. Most of the area is inaccessible to boaters but the same fella we had talked to earlier gave us permission to tie to his dock so we could go for a walk and check out the "community". We thought maybe that meant a store or two but it turned out to be a huge sub division of estate homes, oh well, great to stretch our legs. 

wildlife!

Still Pond Creek

It was a short run the next day into Baltimore Inner harbour.  Very busy entrance to the harbour with tons of commercial shipping and industry along the waterway. 





We spent a couple of days at the Inner Harbour Marina. Caught up on laundry and grocery shopping. We then moved off and anchored just outside of the Aquarium right in the inner harbour downtown. I thought it was going to be busy and load but for the exception of Saturday night, music and sirens, the nights were quiet and peaceful. At times we did feel like we were being invaded by dragons due to "Haven" swinging on her anchor we ended up in the boundary of a great little paddle boat business.





Also there was a tour boat that looked like a pirate ship passing us all day and night running the same act and music - we were thinking of testing our flare gun at one point. 



We followed the lead of other boaters and tied our dingy to the only little strip of wall that didn't say "no docking|", in front of the vessel "Chesapeake". We felt it was secure and did not have any troubles leaving it for the entire day on more than one occasion.




top of Federal Hill


From what we saw of Baltimore it is a very vibrant city that has put a lot of money and time into planning their waterfront. Amazing amount of history, fabulous architecture and great people.  Definitely sketchy areas that you wouldn't want to be caught in at night as well as one area we went through on the bus that you wouldn't want to be caught in during the day! 

Baltimore actually has a free bus system that runs four lines connecting the downtown area, how awesome. We managed to take advantage of 3 of the lines to get a peak at multiple areas of town as well as getting in lots of walking.. We visited Historic  Mount Vernon, Federal Hill and Fells Point area. The later is part of the original waterfront dating back to mid 1700's and is now a happening place with strips of little pubs playing live music. We took in a night of music in Cat's Eye Pub where I don't think they were concerned about max numbers of people. We also took in a bit of the Fell's Point Festival - street party -tons of people, food and live music. 



                                     



Oh, Al also managed to take the bus to have our propane tank filled, yaah.  
We totally enjoyed Baltimore but now it's time to make our way over to Annapolis for the boat show.

Between Baltimore and Annapolis we stopped for the night up inside Bodkin Creek. /Beautiful protected spot. Storm was due to hit soon (actual Tornado warning for the Baltimore area) so we stayed to wait out the weather playing cards and watching movies.  The rain fell all day and we did get some winds but nothing like what they were predicting. 

after the storm 
Off to Magothy River, talk to you soon.