Monday Sept. 24, 2012

Dave spoke to one of the guys in the anchorage in the Cohansey River about the tides & he said he was leaving at 7:00 am., so we followed him out.  We had a really good run, up the rest of Delaware Bay & saw 8.2 knots on the way.  We entered the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal about 12:30 pm.  The canal is designed to handle large ocean going vessels including navy ships, but the only thing we saw was power boats & other sailboats.  We had been pushing for several days to get as far inland as we could, to avoid bad weather we’d been hearing about since leaving Atlantic Highlands.  We got a dock in Chesapeake City to wait out the storm.  The owner of the Chesapeake Inn, Restaurant & Marina was kind enough to give Dave a ride to a convenience store several miles away, for milk.  Later we walked into town to a crab restaurant & ordered crab cakes, & one crab.  The waitress gave Dave a lesson on how to eat crab.  The lady at the table next to us thought it was really funny that Dave had ordered one crab, as her husband had just devoured 3 dozen.  

Tuesday the storm finally arrived.  The hazardous weather warnings on the radio were going all day so we stayed close to the boat & caught up on things.  

We were up early Wednesday morning & blew up the dingy & mounted it back on the dingy-tow.  We were off to Annapolis, going against the tide again.  We had the sails both up today, getting some of the best sailing in we’ve had since we left home.  We arrived late to Annapolis in time to find ourselves in the middle of a sailboat race.  It is a huge mecca for pleasure boats of all sizes & we had trouble finding the mooring balls at first.  

Thursday morning we got a water taxi to go ashore.  We had hoped to go to a West Marine & a grocery store & get back & do an oil change on the boat.  With the time it took us to get to West Marine on the bus, water taxi, & return, we were unable to get groceries.  Based on the guide books we figured we could get groceries at our next stop.  With a new pump we bought at West Marine, the oil change went alot smoother this time. 

We left heading south for Solomons Island.  There were several large freighters anchored in the bay, waiting for the tide to turn.  But not us, we were taking it on the nose again.  It was a quiet trip down the Chesapeake until we realized we were sailing through a target range for the U.S. Air Force.  We did a quick 90 degree turn & got out of there real quick!  We seemed to be the only ones that had spotted that on the charts.  Several other boats just sailed through the whole area without incident.  We arrived at Solomons Island late afternoon, tying up to their fuel dock.  When we inquired about a grocery store, we found it was 4 or 5 miles away.  Shortly after we arrived, a 39’ catamaran came in & tied up across the fuel dock from us. The owners, Steve & Gwen were a really nice couple who used to keep their old boat at this marina.  They introduced us to their friends, Rusty & Lee.  Rusty is a local boat builder who has done an incredible job of upgrading & modifying his Morgan 43. 

We planned on staying put the next day due to another front coming through.  Rusty lent Steve & Gwen & us, his truck in the morning to go to West Marine & a grocery store.  Rusty told us about a different chart book for the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway).  They had one at West Marine & we bought it.  It looks pretty good & is very similiar to a CAA trip-tik.  Finally got stocked up on groceries as well.  The weather front finally came through Sataurday night, bringing some rain & high winds, which carried on into the morning. 

 We decided to stay an extra night & we caught up on a few boat jobs in the morning.  After lunch, we went to a Waterman’s competition & watched the local fisherman competing backing up their boats. This was a huge local event with people from all the surrounding area cheering on their favourite boat.