While we were at Dave and Nicki's last night we planned our next steps. The plan is that we will wait here until the weather improves, i.e., more manageable wind speeds. Then, we'll travel about 40 nm to an anchorage in Middle River at Galloway Creek, which is on the western side of the Chesapeake. It gets dark early, so if we don't make it that far before sunset, our backup plan is to anchor at Still Pond on the eastern side of the Chesapeake, which is only about 30 nm away. Like good little Boy (and Girl) Scouts, we try to be prepared for everything. We always try to have a Plan B, no matter what we are doing.
It rained and blew all night--enough that our boat was actually heeling over at the dock. Weird feeling. After several days of high winds and torrential downpours, Carey thinks we should rename our boat RC's Ark. They even have a flood advisory here. No worries for us, though, since we'll just rise with the water levels.
This is one of the first cool mornings we've had. It's 14 degrees, but it'll warm up a bit later to 19 degrees.
We continued with our 'to do' list today and were able to check a lot of stuff off that list. Gotta love that! When we went in to pay for another night's marina fees, Tim gave us a half price deal. Nice!
One of the items on my list was to reprovision. Unfortunately there is no grocery store near here. They have a convenience store, much like a Mac's Milk, but they didn't carry the fresh veggies and other stuff we needed. The closest grocery store was Food Lion about 8 km away. I had resigned myself to making do with what we had until we got to Annapolis, but then I bumped into Matthew from Kinship. He said they had hired an Uber cab to take them to the grocery store and invited me along. Woohoo! So nice. I jumped at the chance. They were leaving in five minutes and I was ready.
I only needed a few things, so my two bags should have been fine. Haha. Five bags later, I carried everything out to the cab (with some help from Shannon, who is crewing on Kinship). Matthew and Kathleen wouldn't even let me chip in on the cost of the cab. Once again I am blown away by the kindness and generosity of others.
We had a roast beef and mashed potato dinner with garlic bread onboard, thanks to my fresh provisions. Yummy!
For dessert, we were invited over to Kinship (along with Dave and Nicki) for some delicious apple cake and ice cream. Ice cream is rare on boats, because few of us have freezer space for it (except Off Duty II, of course), but Kathleen bought some today and wanted us to eat it all up. Well, okay.
While we were there, we talked about our different experiences along this shared journey, and also our upcoming plans and preparations. So interesting. My special talent is picking brains, so I gathered lots of information from Matthew and Kathleen, e.g., what storm sails and drogues they have for the passage, passage meal planning, etc.
Tomorrow we will go through the Chesapeake & Delaware (C&D) Canal into Chesapeake Bay. Tim, the dock master, says we should arrive at the mouth of the canal one hour before high tide. Tomorrow's high tide is at 12:10 pm, so if we leave here by 10:30 we should time it just right. The tides here are huge--6 feet! Strangely, though, when we get into the Chesapeake there are only 1 foot tides. Weird, but much less complicated for us.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
It was cool overnight, but it was just right for sleeping. We are checking a few more jobs off our list this morning and then will be on our by 10:30.
We left the dock at 10:30 and were into the C&D Canal by 11:00. We caught the tide just right, I guess, because we were getting 8 to 10 knots SOG! Love that. The canal is nothing special--just a mostly straight river with several bridges (6 in 14 miles). It turns into the Elk River which empties into the Chesapeake Bay. That was the easy part.
Yikes! Crab pot minefield! I took a shortcut to our anchorage (out of the main channel) and we had to wend our way through hundreds of crab pots. We both had our eyes peeled. I guess that's a good reminder that we are in Chesapeake Bay.
By the time we arrived in the Galloway Creek anchorage we were tired out and hungry. I made a most delicious penne dish with pesto sauce, asparagus, bacon, tomatoes, spinach and chicken. It looked and tasted like a gourmet meal (Carey actually said that)! I stole the idea from the Penne Rustico they serve at Crabby Joe's in Petrolia. I had doubts that I could replicate it, but I did! I was thrilled.
After cleaning up, I grabbed a book and Carey listened to the Blue Jays. They actually won! Happy days.
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