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.

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.

Jersey Shore

Hello everyone. Sorry it's been so long to get something posted but I can't beat myself up about it as some things are out of my control - I've been reading a great book than't helping me stay grounded - Thanks Jen!

Well the last week has been wonderful. Weather has stayed in our favour. Rain has held off and the temperatures during the day still have a hint of summer in them. Nights are cool and getting colder every day. We had the electric heater on last night.  The leaves have started to turn as fall sets in.

We have spent some time out on the Atlantic, a couple of fabulous sailing days with 20 knots of wind on our aft quarter. We are thrilled how are new sails are running.

am

pm

Leaving NYC we followed the Jersey Coast south and made our first stop in Manasquan Inlet at a place called Brielle and spent 3 nights at dock as no real options for anchoring available.
Had a great few days taking in the sights and sounds, including a seafood festival. Very expensive docking fees, almost as much as NYC, a bit shocking. Al ended up getting the days mixed up (happens when your retired) and booked us into the marina on the wrong day, oops. Had to take a different dock for the night.

Jersey Shore at Point Pleasant

Manasquan Inlet

Crazy  pier docking, quite a jump in low tide

From there we ended up in Atlantic City.  Not as exciting as we had thought it would be (without spending money) and ended up leaving 1 day earlier than we had planned.  

Next was Cape May which we loved. Spent one whole day biking and exploring. Cooked and ate my first feast of Mako Shark, delicious, even though I couldn't google how to cook it!

Atlantic City

Cape May

We headed up the Delaware Bay with great weather and a gentle push up to Chesapeake City under motor. Another wonderful place where we spent 2 days at anchor and 1 on the free dock. Biked and walked around a town that still resembles an error when the canal was built in the early 1800's.  Oh, and the Crab fries, amazing. Its like the East Coast version of Canadian Poutine - french fries topped with fresh crab and covered in a cream sauce, OMG.

Met some great people and had our first boat party on board.  A few cocktails into the night Al convinced Brian, one of our guests, to join him in letting me shave their heads (sorry Anne), I don't think I did an awful job but both of them probably need a bit of touching up!

looking good after guys.

Two things that keep repeating themselves on this leg of the trip has been 1. the incredible number of crab pots that scatter the waterways and are extremely difficult to see. And 2. is how quaint and beautiful all these little places that we are coming across. Picturesque waterways where fishing is obviously a big part of everyday life, both commercial and pleasure. With beachside holiday hotspots and amazing architecture and history.

Look closely, you can see the crab pot buoy.

We have been getting great use out of our bikes, definitely worth dragging them around.  One day we ended up going around 9 miles on the hunt for farm fresh eggs. Well, happily that's exactly what we found only 5 minute bike ride from our boat!. A wonderful couple ran a little honour "store" where they sold eggs, and local organic meat.  We got a bit excited as there was no grocery store to be had in Chesapeake City and proceeded to fill our back pack!

The farm land around this area was so beautiful, filled with spectacular horse farms.

hit the jackpot for eggs

The boat is holding up well with no surprises or real issues yet.  One area, other than internet, that is driving us CRAZY is the ridiculous effort and no return in finding a place that will fill our propane tanks.  We never would have thought this to be such an issue. Hopefully our next stop we'll have better luck.

Well we seem to be braking the budget weekly. Although we haven't started to loose sleep over it yet, we are hoping that things will start to even out soon!  

Hope all is well with everyone. 

you never know who you'll meet.