rock hall

when we got to the rock hall area, we circled around a bit looking for a good PFA for consuelo.  swan creek, unfortunately, was thin in that department.  well, we anchored anyway and then dropped the dinghy  and went into haven harbour marina.  tom has a long history with that place so he went into the marine store looking for the owner and wound up talking to the owner's grandson.  to make a long story short, we were given a free slip - yay!  well, that certainly was cool, and, yup, you guessed it....  MORE CLEANING.  at least all the dead insect bodies were off the boat.   you had to make sure that every little nook and cranny was hosed down - i swear, the corpses were everywhere!.  they gave us the floating dock, too - nice!   easy to get consuelo on and off.  the only thing is that we were given a slip at the head of the dock.  everyone has to pass through there to get to shore and haven harbour is a party place.  we arrived on thursday, and on friday, the pennsylvania navy arrived - a lot of the boats that have slips in rock hall have owners who live in pennsylvania.  summer weekend - what do you expect?  the place was packed!   

tom saw a lot of his friends from when he lived in rock hall a million years ago when haven harbour was just a concept.   we went biking and did a little grocery shopping and marina and boatyard visiting.  someone lent us a car and we went to west marine and then had lunch with an old friend of tom's.  i tried to work.  ten million people walked by the boat - i tell you, we have never seen more activity in a marina than we have here in haven harbour!  on friday night, one of the boats at the head of the dock had christmas lights strung all over it.  when i took consuelo out for the last time that evening, the boat was filled with people and there were three guys with guitars and everyone was singing "wild, wild horses.....  couldn't drag me away......"  hahaha....  like i said, a party place.  we also had dinner with the marina owner and some members of his family.  then we were invited to the marina's crab feast the next day so we were forced to stay one more day.  again, all these marina nights with unlimited water, A/C and wifi - we were getting pretty spoiled.  saturday, we took the loaner car and drove out to another marina - the sailing emporium - and then to the eastern neck island national wildlife refuge.  so lovely to see the marshes again but it is summer and it was hot and one had to be careful - ticks and all.  i didn't want us and consuelo tramping around out there too much.  we would have taken the dinghy but we forgot to drop it before the boat next to us arrived and docked.  with it there, there simply wasn't any room to get the dinghy through so we were glad for the loaner car.  rock hall really is a happening place.   we topped our stay with the marina's crab feast.  they had a live band (which is still going as i write this but tom and i are party poopers so we are back on the boat and he is already asleep!)  these crabs were huge and heavy and delicious. we sat with the marina owner's son and his wife and they didn't have any so the table's crabs were all ours.  tom picked and picked long after i had given up and we went home with two ziplock bags of crab meat which are currently in the freezer.

anyway, the events of the whole weekend were rather unexpected but that's the cruising life for you.  you sort of have a plan and then things happen and you just kind of go with the flow.  tom was very happy to see old friends.  i was very happy to have a clean boat and wifi :) 

this was also the weekend of the super moon and the moonrise view from my desk was absolutely spectacular!

super moon

the marshes of eastern neck island

heading out to the overlook