Sarah’s Creek

 

 

Morning in Sarah's Creek

New Windlass day. I take everything I can, apart, for removing the old windlass. Linda goes back to Donna’s too wash our jackets. After lunch Ken comes by to help me with removing the old windlass. Ken borrows a neighbors sawzall. I can lift the windlass up to cut it apart above the deck instead on making a mess below deck. Ken takes me to a local hardware store to buy some more metal cutting blades. The blades don’t last long. We head back out to Lowes to buy a diamond abrasive saw blade, which does the trick to decapitate the head of the windlass. Meanwhile Donna is shortening the sleeves on Linda’s sweat shirt and adding cute little thumb holes.

Out with the old

 

In with the new

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hard work has been done on the windlass. The new one drops in place where the old one was mounted. The existing switches and wiring work with the new windlass motor. I just have to connect three cables. It only takes me about and hour to get the new windlass installed. This one is all stainless steel. The old one had lots of aluminum parts which were always a problem.

Ken and Donna had dinner guests (not us) for tonight so we drove over to the marina across the creek for dinner at York River Yacht Haven restaurant – York River Oyster Company.

 

 

Sarah’s Creek

After wiping off a lot of dew I start to slowly crank up the anchor and washing it down as I go. With Mill Creek so calm we can drift around for a while, while I slowly take care of the anchor. Hopefully the last time I have to do this. 

 

Mill Creek in the morning

Another cool day on the Chesapeake

Once back out on the Chesapeake we have a sunny warm day, even though we have to motor. We dock ourselves around 3:15. Ken and Donna are busy and we have been here before. Again I do battle with Verizon techs, with no success, A-holes. Linda takes laundry to Ken and Donna house while I work on stuff on the boat. Donna and Ken make us a wonderful dinner and we play cards until the laundry is finished. 

Interestingly, a couple days later I notice that we have a new photo of our boat on MarineTraffic.com.  Marine Traffic shows the position and daily track of boats with AIS. AIS broadcast boat position, speed and direction over VHF which other boats receive and display on their chart plotters. Land based VHF stations receive these signals and ships positions are available on the internet. Various people take photographs of passing boats with AIS and posted them under the boat name on Marine Traffic. You can post your own photos, which I have done previously.

Leaving Mill Creek

 

Mill Creek.

We leave by 7:45 and have fairly good sailing once we are out on the Chesapeake. We are close hauled, but later in the day the wind turns on our nose and we are motoring. We pound into waves for about 3 hours. Linda had to turn to her Ginger root to avoid sea sickness. We have stayed in this Mill Creek by Reedville before and it is always after some rough sailing or motoring.We arrive at 4pm. It is always so calm here. We enjoy a quiet evening and are in bed by 8:30. 

Navy target in the Chesapeake for aircraft

Another cool day behind the vinyl

I text Ken Nitchie, Ken and Donna are our next stop, to open up our windlass box from Defender. I fully expect it to be the wrong one or some other issue. It is the correct one.

 

 

 

Solomons

We decide to stay another day. Calvert Marina finds space for Blow Away Too. Alain and Diane had some packages sent to this marina. Linda and I go for a walk and check out this little restaurant, Hidden Harbor, on the water that we have missed before. They have a very interesting menu. We invite Alain and Diane to meet us for lunch there. They have a very good Roti Stew.

Solomons

We have breakfast and shower before we say good by to Bruce and Pam. We head to Harrington Harbor South about two miles away for a pump out and fuel. Left there around 11:00 AM. We got into Solomons around 3:45 and stayed at Calvert Marina, $40 a night and I don’t have to deal with the anchoring. 

Alain and Diane, “Blown Away Too” comes in shortly after us and has to anchor, no room at the Inn for them. We are sharing a T-Dock with a Catamaran that is practically tied up in the middle of the dock. Coming in late we are on our own to dock. With the wind it takes some effort to land on our remaining end of the dock. The do-fuss in the Catamaran does not even notice our arrival or just ignores us. Our dinghy is sticking a little out in the fairway.

Another cold night, we are happy to be plugged in for heat, with our reverse cycle heat pump.

 

 

 

Sunset over Solomons

 

Deale

 

Shipwright Marina in the morning

 

Our holding tank is near full, so we have been taking lots of walks to the restrooms. In the morning I work on the wiring for our new diesel heater. 

 

Don't close the lid,

After lunch I walk over to West Marine to buy a switch. Linda gets a ride to a local Supermarket with Bruce. After dinner Pam and Bruce stop by for Hot Chocolate and Amaretto, our favorite cold weather drink.

Deale

Up early for breakfast on the boat so we can catch the 8:30 Spa Creek Bridge opening. 

 

Morning on Spa Creek

Spa Creek Bridge closing behind us

We have a short day to Shipwright Marina at Deale where our friends Bruce & Pam are staying on their boat. We arrive at 12 noon.

 

Anchored Tankers waiting to go into Baltimore

Manana on dock at Shipwright Harbor Marina

After we have lunch, Bruce & Pam and Rich & Lynn and Bill & Chiuan, friends of Bruce and Pam who we have meet before and have their boats at the same marina, stop by. We plan to go out to dinner together later that evening after everyone comes over to our boat for Happy Hour.

We have a very nice dinner at a high end restaurant. We don’t get back to the boat until 10:45pm.

 

Bruce, Pam, Rich, Lynn, Chiuan, Bill & Linda