May 16, 2016

First thing this morning I saw this heron eating a fish.

We left Herrington Harbour North at 10:20, and made our way out of Herring Bay.     We were hailed by Cat Daddy shortly after 11:00 he was behind us and had spent the night at Herrington Harbour South. Andy and Rafe chatted- we will cross paths again.  There was a small craft advisory out for most of the Chesapeake with 2 foot waves and winds gusting to 20 kts.  It didn’t seem that bad out on the bay and it wasn’t raining.  We reached the Thomas Point shoal light at 12:04,

there were several large ships anchored out between the light and Bay Bridge.

We crossed under Bay Bridge around 13:00 and headed  north-east towards Swan Creek.  We entered  the channel into Rock Hall Harbour and tied up to the dock at 14:30, having gone about 30 nautical miles for the day.

Near the boat was this oysterman monument.

We went exploring and found Waterman’s Crab house and stopped for a beer and Maryland crab soup, afterwards we got directions to  down town and walked the 1.5 miles to get there, but none of the stores, including the ice cream store were open,  I did find this free library box and took a book, as you can never have too much reading material on the boat.

On our trek back to the boat I saw this statue in front of someone’s house.

In the evening we went back to Waterman’s Crab house and shared  the steamed crab pot which consisted of   4 large  crab, 12 mussels, 12 clams,   1 lb of shrimp, 2 potatoes and a cob of corn.  It took us well over 1½ hours to dissect the crabs and eat it all.  It was a little messy!  We met a couple from York  PA (Dave and Cindy) at the next table and told them all about our Loop adventure to date.  Following dinner, they came over to the boat to visit some more.

  We went to bed and the boat was rocking against the dock, during the night the wind changed and the tide started coming in and the rocking/banging increased.  This made sleep impossible so  between 2:30 and 4:00, we  tried moving the fenders and securing the boat with additional lines to decrease the banging. (Elaine: not quite as bad as Pahokee in February, but almost). Once we hit high tide at 4:30, it seemed to be a little better.  This was a free dock and it likely would have been ok if there hadn’t been wind–   It was a Sleepless night in Rock Hall!

May 17, 2016

We left the dock at 8:10 and headed back out to Chesapeake Bay, winds were light, but it was overcast.

We had likely only gone about 30 minutes when the predictable happened—it started to rain.

We proceeded north, saw a couple of barges doing some dredging and met one barge  with gravel and the rain continued.

We entered the Sassafras River and anchored near Knight Island at 1:15

having gone a total of 34 NM for the day.  We’re still about 20 miles away from the C&D (Chesapeake & Delaware) Canal  which will take us into Delaware Bay and closer to  the Atlantic Ocean.  .  It’s now 8 p.m. and I finally see the sun, as it is going down. It going to be  an early night, to catch up on the lack of sleep.

May 10 thru 13

We continue to have cool rainy weather here in Maryland.  A record has been set with 15 continuous days with precipitation in  parts of the state—not the best weather for travelling and sightseeing.  We waited around most of Tuesday for the delivery of the oil switch—in the late afternoon we learned that the UPS guy had been in the area around 12:15- but didn’t have the correct address.  Andy’s phone number was on the shipping label but he didn’t think to call us.  So, no part Tuesday.  On Wednesday we finally got the part at noon.  Andy called the mechanic however he wasn’t able to make it to our boat until later in the day.  Andy was able to replace it on his own, and then proceeded to change the oil in the starboard engine.

On Thursday the plan had been to leave Herrington Harbour, however we were fogged in.  The rainy weather was to continue, so we decided to stay at this marina until after the weekend. We rented a car so we could drive to a couple of the places we had hoped to see by boat.  In the afternoon we walked around the marina and checked out the historic village.

These are the trees with the bright purple/pink  flowers that I admired in South Carolina

On Friday after getting the car we drove to Annapolis.  We went on a 2.5 hour walking tour of the State Capital and some of the historic buildings in town in the rain.

It including going into the state capital building and seeing where Washington resigned as commander-in-chief.

We also went to the United States Naval Academy, located on the banks of the Severn River which was founded in 1845.  This facility trains 4000 plus midshipmen to become officers in the US Navy and marine corps.   

The residence for these young men and women is called Bancroft Hall.

We visited the Naval Academy Chapel where here was some amazing stained glass windows.

In the crypt of the chapel there is the remains of Commodore John Paul Jones, who was one of the naval leaders of the American Revolution.

Here’s a view of the harbour from the city docks.

On Saturday, we plan to go across the Bay bridge to the Eastern shore and visit St. Michaels.

May 6,7,8,9

On Friday for forecast was for rain all day and that’s what we had.  Andy decided it was a good day to change the oil in the engines.  When he started up the engines, he noticed that he had an oil leak in the starboard engine, and there was about a quart of oil in the bilge.  Because we’re at a full-service marina, he called a couple of the contractors on site to see if someone could come take a look.  He was told there was a 2 week backlog but one company may be able to have someone come on Saturday on O/T, they would let us know later in the day.

Andy met a mechanic from on our dock working on another boat, who came to check our leak.  He told us what we required, and we called Trans Atlantic Diesel for the parts we had to send them this picture to ensure they sent the right one. 

We should have them on Monday.  So Andy changed the Port engine oil, and cleaned up the spill under the starboard.  It’s a 31-year-old boat things wear out!

On Saturday morning, we got picked up by Enterprise as we had rented a car, so we could go into Washington to play tourist.  It is only a 35 mile drive.

We drove around; a little and  went to the Lincoln Memorial,

as well as the Korean, Vietnam and WW II memorials;

We also saw this Einstein monument near where we had parked.

We did a lot of walking, as there was no nearby parking and thousands of people, many of which were foreigners like us speaking many different languages.  There were also lots of Pittsburg fans, as the Capitols played the Penguins Saturday night.  We went to the Happy Harbour restaurant, in another marina in Tracey’s landing for supper.

On Sunday we left the boat, shortly after 9 and headed back into Washington.  Our plan was to spend a few hours at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

and then go to one of the other Smithsonian museums.  We got to the museum, just when it was opening at 10:00, and got great parking just across the street.  We embarked on a 1.5 hour guided tour at 10: 30 which lasted until almost 1:30, and we hadn’t seen it all yet.

We went back to some areas to take more pictures and went into galleries, that weren’t on the tour—we left the Museum after 4:00.  In the 6 hours there we saw and heard about early flight, with the Wright Brother’s display, Spirit of St Louis,

 Amelia Earhart Lockheed Vega, as well as saw some of the early mail delivery planes,

first passenger planes and military planes

 i saw this Canadian flag flying outside of one of the windows while I was taking pictures of planes and focused in on it. Not sure what building it was on.

There was lots about the space program, and space race- some of the artifact are the actual ones used, or are the “back ups”.

 sputnik model supplied by Russia

Explorer 1  backup satellite

various missions and pictures and artifacts from the moon.

Here I’m touching  moon rock.

There were also displays from both World Wars, and the evolution of navigation from naval times, up to rocketry navigation including global positioning systems.  Here is a picture of the robotic car too.

How ironic leaving Washington, our GPS stopped working, we realized the adapter from the GPS to the cigarette lighter was faulty.  Luckily it had got us onto Pennsylvania Avenue and Andy figured he could get us home from there.  That’s why I let him drive both the car and the boat—he has much better sense of direction than I do.  We got off Pennsylvania Avenue in search of a store, where we could buy a “mini” adapter piece—tried several drug stores and one lady gave us some brief instructions as to where we could find a Best Buy, it was 5:30 by this time and being Sunday- we figured it may close at 6:00.  We followed what we thought were the instructions, but didn’t find it.  Andy still figured he could get us home and had an idea where there was a Wal-Mart.  We saw a Staples enroute however it was closed.   We found an adapter in Big Lots and once again had our GPS working.  We arrived home at 8:00—it was a long 11 hour day on the road.

Monday morning we got up, and Andy noticed that our American courtesy flag and staff were missing—not sure if they were taken during the night or yesterday while we were away.  Funny thing is that the flag was getting quite tattered, and I had taken it down on Friday when it was raining and cut off the tattered ends and re-hemmed it by hand.  Maybe I should have left it—no one would have wanted it in the state it was in.

We got ready and drove in to Washington, slower trip than on the weekend as there was a lot more traffic on the road and places where they were doing some road repairs and it was raining again.  There has been one stretch of Hwy 4, Pennsylvania Avenue that was full of pot holes and ruts so the repairs are needed.

We had an appointment to visit the International Temple of the Order of the Eastern Star at 1:30.  We arrived there at 11:30 because when we had cased the area on Saturday, I had noticed that many of the streets had no parking between 9:30 and 11:30 on Mondays for street sweeping- so we figured if we were there at 11:30- we shouldn’t have a problem finding a spot.  We walked by the OES headquarters and ran into a group of star members from Burlington Ontario, who had visited the centre in the morning.

  They had told us were they had gone for lunch nearby and we decided to go there as well.  I had Crab cake sliders.

They had also told us that there was parking behind the building for visitors.

After lunch we moved the car to the OES parking spot, and went into the building at 1:15.  Once our dues cards were scrutinized the tour started at 1:40.

Here’s some info about the headquarters from Wikipedia:  The building is located at 1618  New Hampshire Avenue NW in the historic  Dupont Circle  neighborhohood of  Washington D.C.  and was the former Perry Belmont Mansion completed in 1909.  This building serves as the headquarters for General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. The Right Worthy Grand Secretary and his spouse live on the premises. Tours are usually for members only. Items from the Belmont era of the mansion, as well as items sent to the International Temple as gifts from chapters around the world are on display It was bought in 1925 for 100,000  and is now valued at 7.5 Million (2009 evaluation.)  Here’s some of the pictures from the building

These are on  the ceiling.

We were in the mansion for almost an hour- amazing rooms and furnishings.  But we really don’t understand why the O.E.S. needs something this opulent.

May 3,4,5

On Tuesday we left at about 6:20, it was raining intermittently most of the morning.  Since it was a work day, both the upper and Whitehaven ferry were operating.

It took us nearly 3 hours to come down the Wicomico River to the Great Shoal light.  We went through Hopper Strait and past the Bloodsworth (a navy bombing range) and Hooper islands.  We encountered some flags appearing in the water along with crab pots

and were confused for a time, wondering if they were flags marking fish nets like we’re use to in Manitoba.  We finally stopped a boat with “watermen”( this is  what  fishermen/ crabbers are called around here) they told me the flags are used to mark a string of  crab pots.  Thank goodness for that because we had been trying to avoid passing between 2 flags, and were almost immobilized as the flags seemed to be everywhere.  We appreciated that the crab pots were quite visible with the flags-of all the  places we had been and seen crab pots this was the first time they were marked this way.

Our route then took us closer to the main shipping channel and we encountered these two boats—we probably looked like ants to them.

Here are the 2 boats passing to put their sizes into perspective.

We continued northward passing by several more islands on the Eastern shore.  It was still quite overcast, we turned into the Little Choptank River at 14:32, and followed the channel down to the entrance to Hudson Creek.  We went up the creek about 2 miles until we reached a large open bay.   We anchored at 15:50.  This stately home was our neighbor for the night.

Around 7 we had a shower and several more through the night.  In the morning we decided to stay put in this anchorage for another day.  As the morning progressed we had a couple more light misty showers, and the bay seemed to fog over.  We were quite content to spend the day reading.

On Thursday, after having  breakfast we started the engines at 8:40 and  headed out from  the anchorage. We had watched a couple of watermen the previous day go back and forth along the creek, they seemed to be using nets / cages attached to their boats to catch fish.

We exited the Little Choptank River by 9:48, it was another cold and dreary day.  We headed north through the shipping channel up to marker CR, which makes a whistling noise,

and on to Marker 82 which we reached at 11:22.  We then proceeded westward to the Maryland shore and into Herring Bay.  Following the marked channel we reached Herrington  Harbour North marina in Deale at 12:45.  This marina has 600 slips, with a complete repair and service yard as well as a West Marine and restaurant on-site.

It also has wetlands for birds and other animals and dry storage.

The plan is to be here for several days to explore western Maryland and go into Washington DC.

MAY 1,2

On Sunday, it was raining, we had a great breakfast, afterwards I went outside and took some pictures around the house.

In the afternoon, we went to the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art—the museum has several galleries of decoys  and carvings and a special one with Japanese paintings.

Jim, Peggy and Andy the Marathon gang in front of  some Canada Geese

We then stopped at the EVO craft brewery  for snacks and beer, and checked on the boat at the marina.

On Monday  it was June’s birthday

and here’s Jim  working Monday morning in his home office.

We borrowed Peggy’s car and went to Walmart  to try to update our phone.  In the afternoon we went on a short boat ride, Andy let the Birthday girl be the Captain.  We went almost to Upper ferry  and returned.

Saw this Osprey on the mast of a boat in the marina.

Tonight we are going for dinner and then back to the boat, we’ll be leaving in the morning.

April 30, 2016

We walked to the bakery at 7:45 and bought some fresh-baked goods for today’s trip.  We departed at 8:15 and got back out to the Bay at 8:57.  We crossed Pocomoke Sound passed by Tangier Island.   Tangier is supposed to be a very unique place, –it is a “dry” town, with a Elizabethan style of speech, no vehicles only golf carts and most people are fishermen. Sounds like Newfoundland!

We didn’t have time to stop.    It was cold and there was light chop,

another day for layers of clothes and my mitts.

We followed the Tangier Sound and passed by Janes Island, Deal Island, Bloodsworth Island and continued north into Maryland waters.    At 13:52 we passed the Great Shoals light

and began the 20 mile trip upstream in the Wicomico River.   We had to contact  the ferry operator at Upper Ferry to ask for safe passage through, as it is a cable ferry that takes about 3 vehicles at a time across the river.

Saw some very nice houses along the river.

From a distance it looked like there were horses in this yard but they are statues.

We tied up at 4:25 at the Port of Salisbury Marina.

Next to the marina is a ship building yard.   Andy contacted Jim Jensen and he came to pick us up.  We went to their house, where I met Peggy and June as well as Eddie the cat.

Jim barbecued and we had a great meal, heard lots of stories about growing up in Marathon.  I called it a night, but the stories went on for several more hours.

April 28-30

We waited and watched Cat Daddy leave and make the 11:00 opening of the bridge.

The window showed up at 11:15, and what would have been an easy  installation, took over 2   hours, as it was 1/16 to big for the opening.  The first solution was to grind down some of the glass, no success after 2 attempts.  Then they tried to pull up  the aluminum frame with a clamp, this also failed.  Finally they filed off some of the aluminum frame and  they had it in.

By 2:15 we  were able to go to the gas dock and fill up with Diesel at $1.80 per gallon.  We made the 3:15 opening of he great bridge

and were through the lock by 4:00.  We went under several other bridges and  were at mile 0 of the AICW by 5:00.  We docked at a free dock in Portsmouth for the night, Rafe helped us tie up, as  that’s where he was as well.

There is a Portsmouth- Norfolk ferry (paddle boat) that ties up at this dock.

Rafe had supper with us and then we went for a walk  down High street in search of Ice cream.

On Friday morning we left at 6:45, and proceeded through the port of Norfolk, where we saw many boats, many of which were military.

Weather  included some heavy mist, and light winds, we followed a large container ship out of the harbor for several miles.  The waves were 1-2 feet, but as we got further out into open water they increased.  It was cold, damp, rainy  typical Maritime weather—not fun!  Waves hitting the bow, were filling the gunwales with water.  Many items in the cabin got tossed around.    After an hour or two we got protection from the Eastern shore, and it seemed a little better, but we were both chilled.  We proceeded up the bay to marker 2 and turned in to Onancock Creek, and took the  marked channel.

 We had originally planned to anchor out, but decided we needed hot showers.  We had been to Onancock back in the spring of 2014 on our scouting mission- so knew it was a fairly new facility

We docked shortly after 4:00 at the Onancock Town Wharf, we cleaned up the cabin and then went for Hot showers to warm up.  In the evening we walked into town and had beers at the Blarney stone pub.

Today we hope to get to the Wicomico River.

April 25-28

Since we are located next to the Great Bridge bridge, I thought I should investigate why it is called Great Bridge- because it doesn’t look like anything special to me.  I have learned that the Battle of Great Bridge occurred here on December 9^th of 1775, as part of the American Revolution.    The victory by the continental army led to the departure of the British from the area, back to Norfolk

We’ve been tied up to the face dock at Atlantic Yacht Basin since Sunday afternoon, and not a lot has been happening.

  On Monday morning, Andy informed the Customer Service rep that we were here for our window replacement, which we had booked the previous week when the window cracked.     We then proceeded to spend our time cleaning the inside and outside of the boat, as we had some potential buyers coming to see it on Tuesday. By noon we hadn’t seen the service manager yet so we walked a couple blocks to the mall and had lunch and did some shopping. We waited until 4:15 for the service manager to make an appearance at our boat.  Frustrating! He told us he’d put a call in to his window people in the morning—a sub contractor—we were led to believe that windows were done by AYB people.    He also said it may be 4-5 days to get it fixed, because it is tinted tempered glass.

On Monday night I made vindaloo, and Rafe came for dinner, we later walked to the Dairy Queen,  crossing Battlefield Boulevard, was a bit of a challenge, as the road was quite busy,  a sheriff finally put on his blue flashers and let us cross.  He did remark that it was quite dark out and to be safe!

Here’s  the sunset Monday night.

Tuesday morning, the waiting and cleaning continued.   The couple from France came to see the boat at 2 pm—they are hoping to do the loop in the near future and wanted to find out what type of boat options are out there.  Late Tuesday afternoon  the service manager said we could try another supplier for the glass. It had  been a hot day mid 80’s so we went to Dairy Queen again for ice cream.

Andy removed the window early (6:30) Wednesday morning, so that it could be shipped out.  I spent the better part of the next three-hours removing the caulking from the window frame and track.

The captain worked on waxing and polishing the gel coat on the boat.

In the afternoon we went for walk to get groceries, on our way we toured one of the storage sheds at AYB and saw this beauty.

We’ve seen lots of boats come down the Cheseapeake canal and wait for the bridge.  Here’s a few that passed by today.  There is also a free dock just across the channel so the boats change there every few hours or days as well.

Rafe came over in the evening and we played cards the work on his boat was finally finished today so he’ll be leaving in the morning.  No Dairy Queen tonight, instead I had baked chocolate chip cookies.  At about 9:00 it started raining, we had covered up the window  hole with plastic to keep the boat dry.  At 10:00 we saw a  3 level cruise ship go through the Great Bridge.

It’s now Thursday morning, there is still light intermittent rain falling.  We hope the window gets installed today, as this stay is cutting in to the number or days we have to spend on  Chesapeake Bay

Our plan is to make our way   north and visit with some friends of Andy’s that live in Salisbury  early next week.

April 23,24

We left Lamb’s marina  at 9:05 and continued up the Pasquotank River for over ten miles and then took  Turner Cut.  The scenery was amazing,

and because the water was so calm, I got some neat pictures of waves from our wake, combined with reflections from the sky and trees.

We reached mile marker 35 at 10:41.    We had to hustle a bit at the end in order to make South Mills lock for it’s 11:00 opening.    We followed  Glorious Dei into the lock and were through  by 11:30.

After the lock, the channel became narrower.

We passed through the West Channel pedestrian  swing bridge at 12:15, and tied up to the dock at the Dismal Swamp Visitor’s Centre.

We went and registered at the Welcome centre and then crossed on the pedestrian bridge to the dismal swamp state park.    We toured the display building and watched the video on the park.  Here’s some of what we saw…

There was information on the animals, birds  and ecology of the swamp and how it has evolved– Andy made friends with this fellow 🙂  There was also information on the slaves that built the canal and the underground railway.  In the beginning  George Washington  played a part in the  dismal swamp.

We then took one of the trails and found an old still in the bush.  We returned to the boat as it looked like rain clouds were approaching.

Sunday  morning, we went back to the state park to walk down some of the other trails and saw this sign. We saw this tree that looked dead but had more than a dozen  branches that  looked like trees.

Also  saw this blue butterfly.

We left the visitors centre at 9:55, and entered the state of Virginia after passing mile  marker 25 at 10:24.

We saw a number of branches, logs  “snags”, coming out of the water, some of them had turtles  on them  sunning themselves.

There were also branches with these nest/ cocoons – not sure what will emerge from them.

We continued down the canal going about 5-6 miles per hour and the captain seemed quite content at this pace.

We arrived at the Deep Creek bridge 12:50 and had to wait until 1:30 for it to open

and then proceeded to the Deep Creek Lock.

We departed the lock at 2:05 and then continued for a few miles before turning south into the Chesapeake canal.

We made  the 3:20 opening of the Great Bridge lock and the 4:00 opening of the Great Bridge bridge.

 This bridge opens extremely quickly because of the suspended  counterweights.  We arrived at Atlantic Yacht Basin at 4:10, as it is located by the bridge.  We will be staying here in Chesapeake Virginia for a couple of days in order to get some window repairs done.  We encountered  Rafe in the marina, who we had first met in Belhaven.  He came for a visit and later took us shopping in his rental car.  Across the canal, we saw another boat that we had met in Belhaven as well.

We spent over 3 weeks in North Carolina, and met some of the nicest people in small towns, and the two days just spent going through the wilderness of the dismal swamp was so peaceful and enjoyable.  We’ll miss the south!    Greatest Hospitality in NC !