2008 Cruising

6/16 to 6/30/2008

This is our log for 2008; the 2007 East Coast and other voyages are now in Prior Voyages.

We plan to post and update at least weekly. We move the older portions of the log to secondary pages accessible at the bottom of the page. Join our voyage!

Updated on 07/03/2008

6/16/08 - Beautiful quiet night last night. The moon lit the anchorage most of the night creating a surreal landscape. I got up late, 7am and started coffee while I ate my cereal. Ruth got up and had coffee with me in the cockpit while we watched the day unfold. About 9 we sailed out the channel, down the Potomac River and north along the west coast of the bay. Thunderheads started building about 2:30 so we ducked into Solomon's Harbor, anchoring for the night. What a great sail! Miles called with questions about Ariel. It turns out the yard never got around to moving and painting her which poses the question, what turned their refrigeration off? With Ariel at a marina across and up the harbor from us, it wasn't possible for me to get to her slip to check her regularly. Weather radio was warning of severe weather, we felt pretty snug in our anchorage but still prepared the boat in the event we got hit hard. One bad thing about anchorages is there is no room to run. While I was typing Ruth called out "We've got wind coming... get your posterior out her (okay, she used the shorter A word, but I got the message). I moved my posterior just in time, a wall of wind hit, our wind gauge said 37 knots and we know it's broken. (Usually it's a hell of a lot higher) A couple of boats dragged and one broke loose so we all did the dodge'em  dance and no damage was done. Some very close calls though. Ruth did a great job on the helm using the engine while tethered on the anchor dodging boats. NOAA reported the storms were moving at 48 knots, fast devils producing winds to 70 knots. An hour after it started it was over, only the puddles to clean up. 6/17/08 - We had another t-storm at midnight, not near the winds we'd experienced earlier but enough to get me out of bed. I wasn't feeling good last night so we slept in until 9am. After breakfast in the cockpit we headed for the Chessie and north. A pair of landing craft passed close by as we sailed down the Patuxent River. It's hard to stay 500 yards away when they are passing and you're both headed for the same buoy. Gave them a hail on the radio but they weren't talking. Great winds let us sail at 7-8 knots over the water for half the trip before we had to start the engine and motor sail as the wind had swing north. The winds built to 20+ knots and we took a lot of spray over the bow - so much for last night's fresh water rinse. We arrived in Annapolis in time to watch the lasers and lightnings race. Always an evening sailboat race in Annapolis.  Saw 3 go pointy side down and watched them slowly make the  boat upright again by clawing their way like crabs on a steep rock. 6/18/08 - 7:45am and the phone's ringing... the Ariel crew must be back in town. Yup, Miles related that the yard never picked up the boat and painted her. He was trying to make arrangements to have it done in Annapolis. The quotes he was getting now were about the same dollar, plus paint. We concluded the yard had mis-bid the job and elected to let him just go away rather than admit it. Work he thought was being done while he was away now had to be arranged again and would cost much more. Ruth and I went shopping, soda concentrate from Boaters World, electrical parts from Radio Shack, bathroom stuff from a boutique, and a pizza stone. With the Radio Shack parts I continued building the horn switch - getting it mechanically complete. Ruthie had sent Edna at Core Paper flowers and a thank you for completing a transaction when we lost our phone signal. Edna called Ruth today with a big thank you, she loved the roses. Bill & Jill also called, planning to join us in Maine - kewl! Wednesday night is big boat race night in Annapolis. The event was proceeded by a strong wet squall and double rainbow. Both ends of the two rainbows ran right to our boat! I'd never seen that phenomena before - it was amazing. If you look carefully at the tall picture you can discern the colors faintly trailing toward us. The end of the race began with another squall and closed with the trailing boats ghosting toward the finish line in very light breezes. Something for everyone. As usual the finish was in the anchorage. We were anchored right in the middle of it with boats screaming past on both sides. In the frenzy of taking photos the camera batteries died. I inadvertently reversed the replacements and apparently fried the camera, if not that it got a drop of rain it didn't like. Not a good thing. Hopefully we can get it repaired. 6/19/08 - Last nights squalls washed the skies leaving the crystal blue. They also washed the salt off the decks - thanks you Mother Nature. I worked on completing and mounting the horn switch with Ruth. All in and working as designed... I love it when a plan comes together. Now we have a warning device we can depend on. Material came in for the spar storage bag I'm to make for Dennis, so I'd better hustle that out. He confirmed the dimensions and I came up with a better solution, more flexible than my first design. Time for a sewing day! Worked on our Kodak Z740 camera. In the process of moving we seem to have disposed of the manual and CD so we went to Kodak online. No real help there, basically it's send it in for repair. We dug out the spare, our older Olympus C-700 and found that it still works. It's okay for web work but not for print. Ariel checked in. They were anchored in Solomon's. We'll likely join up tomorrow or the next day. They have to haul for paint yet. 6/20/08 - Another great night for sleeping, cool, but not to cold. Wispy clouds against a dark blue sky welcomed the sun... it's Friday in Annapolis. I'm really pleased with the performance of our house battery system. Now we can get up in the morning, make coffee, work on the computer, use power tools and not have to run the engine. During the day a little travel under power, sun and wind put the batteries right back at their peak. Another solar panel would likely make us totally free of the engine but we'd still need a little running for hot water. We have some of the coolest surprises. Ruth was having coffee in the cockpit and called me up to see 12 Naval Academy vessels parading up the channel, crews lining the rails at parade rest in their whites. The vessels were spaced single file about 1/3 boat-length apart. Stunning! The wind was blowing 10 knots from the SSW so we went sailing down the bay, tacking back and forth across it. It was a great ride! We sailed to St Michaels where we joined Miles and Laureen for pork tenderloin and pasta. We brought the meat and they provided a delicious salad and scrumptious pesto pasta. Dinner gave us a chance to catch up on our respective adventures of the past two weeks. 6/21/08 - A little rain very early this morning, not even enough to flush the decks. Not a cloud in the sky at 8am. Took Ruth into St Michaels this morning for the farmer's market. We found a couple of nice treats there, cheeses and breads. We walked their lovely downtown and a couple of side streets before brunching at a deli. A trip to the market refilled our larder... we're a happy couple. Interesting little projects keep cropping up... our soda maker quit working. Tore it apart and found a thin plastic guide had broken off the actuator. I cut up a poly bottle cap and made a new guide... heat welding it to the actuator. So far it works. Took Ruth beaching, too muddy, therefore no good beach glass. She got a few trinkets but no real winners. Tomorrow will be a sewing day. A bag for Dennis, screens for AA and Ariel. 6/22/08 - Gray morning, first we've had in quite a while. Ruth purchased a replacement for our camera on e-bay last night for about 1/3 the cost of repairing our current one. Way to go Ruthie! The overcast cleared early and the day became nice. Miles and Laureen headed for Annapolis for their haul-out and bottom paint. We stayed at St Michaels so I could sew a spar bag for Dennis and side solar shades for Ariel. Got the 14' spar bag done, did a little fancier job than I intended however Dennis is the dude that found my wedding ring when I lost it at Ames Point Boatworks, thereby saving my life - it should be fancier. Now it's shipping time. Step 1, find a box. T-storms starting building late afternoon, could be an interesting night. We've had a couple of wind squall lines pass through but not much rain. 6/23/08 - Another gray morning - unusual in that we haven't had many. Rain with a lot of wind last night. I did several anchor watches and Ruthie did two only to find in the morning that we'd slowly dragged quite a distance - 1/4 mile. Guess we need to get that auxiliary anchor alarm installed and mark the chain so we know how much is out. Sewing day again. About a dozen projects to get designed and started. I calculated requirements and ordered some additional material for Ariel. Then completed AA's bow hatch screen and got the two overhead hatch screens for the main cabin about 50% done. We're getting ready for those Maine mosquitoes. They say the are like birds.  We're thinking about Kevlar screens..... We heard from Miles, they are on the hard and a crew was sanding off the barnacles. He had quite a population of 1/8" high buggers. That will slow you down. The sun came out and the day turned beautiful - high 70's and a light breeze. I wanted to take Ruth to St Michaels Marine Museum so we went into town. Did a little shopping first, then Ruth decided she wanted to save the museum for a future visit  because the ice bag in the backpack was leaking so we returned to the boat and completed a few small projects. While in town we shipped Dennis' storage bag. Keep an eye open Dennis.  We also got a matting for the picture of Ruth's mom on the dock with friends in the olden days swimsuits.  A classic! While in town we purchased a nice fresh salmon fillet, 2.2#. I prepared it on the grill and Ruth made vegetables to go with it. Uuuummmmm, delicious. We both ate our fill and realized we had half the fillet left. Another great meal coming up! 6/24/08 - T-storms and high winds last night. We stayed put as I'd let out another 50' of chain and we'd backed down on it. Ruth and I have to remember to back down on the anchor daily if we've had clocking winds with their potential to roll the anchor. One thing for sure, chain in the locker does no good, as long as we have room to swing all 150' of 3/8" chain is going to be on the bottom. We had a great day of sailing from St Michaels to Magothy River just north of Annapolis on the west shore. We found a nice little bay surrounded by three islands and the mainland, dropping our hook in 11 feet of water. It's great being on the water all day and burning 1 - 1 1/2 gallons of fuel. Just enough to top off the batteries and provide hot water. We are sharing our little anchorage with two sailboats and a trawler. Three sides of the harbor are wooded with houses along the 4th. It's nice and quiet. Talked to Miles, they are back in the water but want to stay in Annapolis until Thursday. We wholly understand, it's a neat place. We will work our way north visiting places we bypassed on previous trips. They need to stop in Baltimore a couple of days (been there, done that) so we will work our way to Cape May or Atlantic City where they will catch up - they should have about 30% boat speed on us and we have decided not to race to Maine. This time we are going to smell the roses. Pizza night - Ruth found a pizza stone in Annapolis and we planned on creating a home made pizza on the grille. Whoops, didn't consult the chef, dinner became cheeseburgers... not bad, 1/4 lb Angus. It's like the wind and tides, always changing. Oh, a kudo for the USCG. This evening an operator for the Baltimore sector handled a 40' cabin cruiser with a fire on board. The Coastie did a great, intelligent job of handling the skipper, coordinating rescue and fire boats. It was fantastic listening to this guy do everything - everything -  perfectly. Everyone safe, fire out - way to go! 6/25/08 - Quiet and cool last night. Woke to another beautiful Chesapeake morning. Virtually no breeze, a nice morning to eat breakfast, drink coffee and read in the cockpit. We decided to stay here another day. I set up the sewing machine and finished the bug screens for the two salon overhead hatches - now we have all the bug holes filled again. I think it was just in time. Last night little black ankle biting flies launched an attack - we won the first skirmish, then retreated to the cabin. Lunch today was exquisite, Ruth used half the remaining salmon and prepared two salmon salads. Perfect fare for an 85 degree day. I could get used to this! Dobbins Island is a local hangout and swim beach for teens and families. It is great watching and listening to them. Late afternoon a fleet of sailboats gathered off the tip of the island. By 6pm we had a full fledged regatta going on in front of us. Over 50 spinnaker boats racing a windward - leeward course with us on the 50 yard line. Kewl! 6/26/08 - Overcast this morning, looks like a high fog. 59 degrees last night, an 85 high forecast for the day with high humidity. After a little housekeeping we hoisted sail and anchor, heading to Rock Hall, Gratitude and Swan Creek. Not much wind, we sailed? at 1.5 knots the first 4 miles, motor sailed the rest of the way. At Gratitude we fueled, first time since Norfolk. 40 hours on the engine, 29.9 gallons in the tank... like the good old days. The clean hull and prop are paying off big time. Not so good, we set at PR (personal record) for highest fuel cost ever, $5.99/gallon for diesel - 4th of July coming up? I looked at Ruth and said, yah... you guessed it... "That's gratitude for you". Okay, got that out of my system. We motored into Rock Hall, quickly realizing it was a marina basin with no room for anchoring. We quickly exited and motored north a mile to Swan Creek. Lots of marinas and mooring ball fields. We found a small 8' hole just off the channel and anchored... after soft grounding a couple of times testing depths in other spots. Used my Wolf River Rat instincts to find the hole. Nice cozy place - just over populated with marinas.  Ariel phoned, they are enroute to Baltimore and plan on catching us in Cape May Monday night or Tuesday. Ruth made another of her fantastic salmon salads for lunch - unbelievable! That fillet made three magnificent meals! I fired up the grill for dinner, 1/4 lb Angus burgers with sautéed mushrooms and motz cheese... we eat better on the boat than we did at home. 6/27/08 - Hot night! Not a whisper of air moving anywhere. Okay, just before dusk a gust came up and blew one boat off its anchor. That was it though - like a last gasp. In 15 minutes they had re-anchored and the wind left - defeated? If it hadn't been for our cabin fan we'd been faced with drinking in the cockpit all night. A slight breeze came with dawn - very welcome. Lazed around until 10, then headed out. We felt our way across the flats outside Rock Hall, using the light towers to stay in 7-8' of water. Saved us 5 miles looping south before we could go north. Not much wind, what there was came from directly behind us so we motored. I've got to get our gennaker sewn back together - yesterday I ripped out the stitches on the edge tapes as the first step in repairing it. The next step will be to re-attach the two halves, then add wider tapes, finally fixing the original tear. Guess fixing it when it first tore was not enough of a challenge? We motored to the Bohemia River, anchoring at 3pm just ahead of a t-storm. We had a few 30+ wind gusts but not much rain. A cold front from PA pushing south made for unsettled weather. Wave after wave of rain passed through though not much wind. After steaks from the barbie we were having a light drink between showers when I looked off the transom... whoa, someone put up a billboard while we were eating... Hoegh Autoliner. A quick search on the internet established they were a leader in overseas car transport with several dozen ships capable of handling 2300 to 6500 vehicle each. Wow. A thought, if we just shipped them around they'd use less fuel. 6/28//08 - Got out of bed a 6am, by the buzzing I figured either the mosquitoes are really big here or we're anchored along the route to a favored fishing hole. Turned out there was a fishing tournament going on and the boats were buzzing by at time intervals. Kind of a cool sport, you get to race and fish... kinda like deer hunting where you get to drink and shoot. Very hazy morning. My first cup of coffee didn't clear my vision so I knew it was the weather. We started through the C&D Canal at 7am, fighting a 1.4 knot foul current. The festival at Chesapeake City, MD turned out not to be an issue. Their harbor was full of boats, some rafted 15 deep. The canal was clear that time of the morning. As one towboat operator told another, they're not sober enough yet to be up. By 9 we were in the Delaware running with the tide at 9.5 knots. That carried us to within 14 miles of Cape May, then the tide turned and our SOG dropped to 5 knots. I cut across the shoal at Cape May, saving us 5-6 miles. We saw about a dozen ships, ferries and petroleum barges. Busy day for ships and mammals... when we hit the tide line Ruth saw more Dolphins than she'd ever seen before. They were everywhere, in front, behind, and on both sides of the boat. It took half an hour to find a place to anchor by the Cape May Coast Guard station, a small fleet of cruising sailboats had already anchored there. We looked for another site, finally returning to squeeze in at the east end of the pack. By 6:15 we had the hook down and were swatting flies... nasty little devils that wouldn't take no for an answer. We read for a while, watching a steady parade of vessels parade by while Buddy whistled to them. I grilled marinated chicken to go with the green peas and mashed potatoes Ruth prepared - hearty fare. 6/29/08 - June is disappearing fast! Last night was quiet, forecast t-storms never materialized. Okay by us. We called Miles, learning that they weren't leaving Baltimore until Monday which puts their arrival in Cape May at Tuesday night. We'll either anchor out and wait or start up the coast knowing they have the boat speed to catch us by New York. We moved to a slip at South Jersey Marina, taking on 18 gallons of diesel (a little less than 1 gal/hr) and water. We took on more fuel a little later... the hose broke while they were fueling a boat next to us, soaking AA in diesel. The dock crew wiped her down, hosed her and wiped her again. Buddy was in the cockpit most of the afternoon, entertaining his/her entourage. Little kids are great when they see a parrot, they are full of questions. We met a lot of nice folks, some cruisers, some racers, some fishermen - the whole enchilada. Ruth took advantage of having a slip and did 4 loads of wash... clean clothes in all the lockers... living pretty high on the hog. We walked to a convenience store (bread, milk) a rum store (liquor store to you landlubbers) and an essential store (West Marine to you boaters), getting a few items at each. We're pretty much good to go. Now we have to decide to wait or let Ariel catch and pass us. In any case we'll be off the dock tomorrow given the $2.95/ft slip fee (it's high season in NJ). A boatload of sailors docked behind us, just back from winning their division of the Annapolis to Bermuda race. Had a good race and intended to sail Bermuda to New York but got so beat up by waves and wind that the helm wheel broke and they had to lash boat hook parts across it to limp to Cape May. Meanwhile the boat was sinking, water coming in a windlass was flooding the hull. Again the crew found the problem and fixed it before it became insurmountable. A long hose to the aft bilge pump reached the forward compartment and helped evacuate 500 gallons of sea water. More adventure than we want! 6/30/09 - Last day of June, whoa, where did that month go? At midnight a boat horn sounded, rolling us out of bed even though AA was in a slip - one never knows, maybe the dock was dragging. Best we can figure it was a drink-to-many sounding off. There was a t-storm approaching from the west but no alarms on the radio. Monday started with light sprinkles from an overcast sky. The forecast didn't look any brighter. The day and the forecast didn't match. The sun came out after a few sprinkles. The marina left a newspaper, a fruit bag and a printed weather report on our deck. I think everyone gets the perk, Ruth figures it's just for boats that the diesel pump sprayed. Either way, nice way to start the day. We moved to the anchorage by the Coast Guard station. It was too late to head north today though the wind and weather are perfect for it. The weather slowly deteriorates through the week. We loose the favorable wind which forces us to motor - $$$$. A couple of vessels left earlier for Block Island, a 40 hour jump. Tempting but it would have put us way to far ahead of Ariel. She isn't schedule to get here until tomorrow night. We've had a couple of offers to buddy boat to Block Island... tempting, but 40 hours is a long passage for 2 people... though Bradd & Maeve would do it in a heartbeat. Guess we're still newbie's. On another note we saw that Chris Conklin took line honors for first to finish in the Trans-Winnebago on Daylight Again (known to Neptune as AA1). Way to go Chris and crew. The ole girl still know how to tango! Chris says she leads.

Click on the photos for an 8" x 10" view. Use Back to return to the site. Room at the pin Come on guys, you've got the whole bay Wait for me...... Fleet assembles under a rainbow... Caught in the pot of gold The hare and the hounds Tag... you're it Rail meat We could almost touch them... Actually heard on the VHF Sailorman calls the coast guard relating he needs an emergency evacuation. He's had heart palpitations for 2 hours... talked to his cardiologist who advised he get to emergency care immediately. The man is on a sailboat with his wife, anchored at a location he describes in detail. The Coast Guard operator asks for his lat/lon. He relates their GPS system is off, but believes he can get it rebooted and get the info. Another boater breaks in, knows the area, and provides the lat/lon coordinates. Okaayyy - the Coastie tells the man to anchor (he started by telling her they are anchored), then tells him that he and his wife should put on their life jackets. Hey, don't laugh, they are a proven life saving device. Next comes the pan-pan announcing a medical emergency (but leaves off the lat/lon), asking boats in the vicinity to render aid - the coast guard isn't in the rendering aid business? The pan-pan was cancelled an hour later noting that aid had been rendered. The life jacket must have worked! Hopefully the guy didn't expire putting it on. Where sailorman messed up was in declaring a life threatening condition. He'd have gotten faster response if he'd reported finding a floating drug cache or a boatload of aliens. Baggin' it - this project was hard to do on the boat, it's longer than the interior Dobbins Island, Magothy River That's Gratitude for you... Looking north, Swan Creek View to west, Swan Creek - quiet area Evening billboard? C&D canal One of the quaint Delaware channel lights - still in service Ruth off Cape May AA at South Jersey Marina dock Boathook and lashings held the wheel together for the ride to safe harbor There's a big one down there...

Visit earlier portions of our 2008 voyage...

Boca Raton to Miami, FL - Jan 1 to 15, 2008	Miami to Key West, FL - Jan 16 to 31, 2008
Key West to Marathon, FL - Feb 1 to 15, 2008	Marathon, FL to Nassau, Bahamas - Feb 16 - 29, 2008
Norman Cay to Georgetown, Bahamas - March 1 - 15, 2008	Georgetown to Royal Island - March 16 - 31, 2008
Royal Island to Green Turtle Cay - April 1 - 15, 2008	Green Turtle Cay to Fort Pierce - April 16 - 20, 2008
Fort Pierce, FL to Savannah, GA - May 1 - 15, 2008	Savannah, GA to Norfolk, VA - May 16 - 31, 2008
Norfolk, VA to Deltaville, VA - June 1 - 15, 2008