Monday, September 22, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
tom's blog contribution (1)
So we have lived aboard Tadhana for 5.5 years now, always
looking forward to the day that we would be casting off our lines and joining the
fall migration of southbound cruisers. We have been actively cruising the
Chesapeake all the while, so you would think we would be all ready to cast off
and go. But this is different. Once we
cast off from Deltaville, it will be three months before we have our car with
immediate access to West Marine, the hardware store, and the grocery (and
Cristina says I don’t like to shop!) - along the way we can stop and shop one or
another other of theses stores, but not all three together. So I have a long
list of projects to complete to be sure that all routine maintenance is done, all reasonably foreseeable maintenance is attended to as well as a few new
systems are added.
With this long list of items, it is a bother to have to redo a project. I don’t have time to do these things twice. So I was perturbed that after removing, disassembling and cleaning the tracks for the pilot house sliding door, a day later it started to bind up. When I took off the upper flashing, the binding stopped???? However, I disassembled the door anyway cleaned the tracks and reassembled it thinking that some old hardened grease in the upper track was the problem. I reassembled it and it slid perfectly. I left the flashing off all day so that we could use the door and make sure the problem was solved. The door worked fine all day, so late in the afternoon I reinstalled the flashing. Getting ready to go out for dinner I closed the door…but it didn’t close all the way. It jammed again! What??? I don’t have time to do this again!!!
Rule #1 of trouble shooting: When something breaks always go
back to the last thing you “fixed”. The last thing I had fixed on the door was
to install the top flashing. It does not
contact the door at any place. That
could not be the problem! I did however
notice one screw head in the overhead track did not look right. I tightened it down and the door worked fine. Weird.
What did the upper flashing have to do with the door track screws? This
bothered me all evening and I awoke to take Consuelo out this morning still
perplexed. When I got back to the boat I
stood on the finger pier and looked very carefully at the door, the flashing,
and the offending screw head. Then I saw it!
One of the screws that attach the flashing hits that track screw and
causes the head to tilt. The door slider catches on it! Take out the offending
track screw and problem is solved. 4 hours wasted yesterday!
So gradually this list of projects is winding down. I think
I will get through most of the list by the time we leave on October 1.
For every two that get checked off, a
new one gets added. For some reason,
that one project that sits at the bottom of the list just stays there. It does not rise up the list to the point of
being tackled. Change the holding tank
discharge hoses…. Wonder why that one has not been attended to?
Saturday, September 20, 2014
back in deltaville.
it was an 8-hour run from solomons to deltaville and the potomac river behaved for us again this time. as usual, there was the big cleanup after an extended cruise and it was nice to be back in our old familiar slip which will soon be ours no longer. the plan is to sit here for a couple of weeks, do boat projects, get the boat and ourselves ready for the trip south although we will be cruising up north to annapolis first where tom has a speaking engagement at the sailboat show for cruising world magazine on cruising the chesapeake. tom has a long list of projects and he has been knocking them off one by one. he changed our anchor from the stainless steel bruce that came with the boat which we have been using all these years to a bigger, heavier manson supreme. the bruce has served us well here in the chesapeake but we will be hitting spots on the ICW with strong currents. in any case, thankfully, it was just a matter of switching it out - the manson supreme fit - JUST! we will be keeping our storage unit here in deltaville for at least this year and then we will see. i pulled out our winter fleece bedsheets to store on the boat for now. we will need them at some point. but we still really have to go through that storage unit and start culling stuff. we made several trips to our local west marine store this week and among other things, i found a pair of sunglasses to replace the ones that i had lost when i fell in the water in cambridge. the new iPad mini with retina display arrived in the mail earlier than expected and that was a pleasant surprise. i even got the wifi+cellular model since the cellular chip has the GPS which will work whether you activate the cellular component or not. we got to see and spend some time with old friends. mid-week, we hauled out to change zincs, inspect the bottom and replace our house bank batteries. it was a short haul - pulled out at 7:15 a.m. and back in our slip at 10:30 a.m. back to boat projects for tom and back to work for me. it's been a busy and expensive week, that's for sure!
on friday, september 19, 2014, we drove over to williamsburg, VA, which is where the closest verizon store to deltaville is located. silly us - we completely forgot about the iPhone 6 debut! no choice but to get in line - it was an hour and a half drive to get there. tom ran off to lowe's while i stayed in line. since i hadn't had a phone all this time, tom and i had been using facetime on his iPhone and on my iPad to communicate when we were separated but that only works when i have wifi. i tried to get the password to the verizon store's wifi and explained that the reason i was there was because i had no phone - mine had failed the swimming test! i wasn't given the password but was offered a phone to use when i needed to make the call to tom to let him know when i was getting close. it's funny - it never even occurred to me to borrow someone else's phone! the line was outside of the store and when i got close to the door, i noticed the blankets on the floor. apparently, some people had come the evening before to line up and camped there overnight - to get a new phone! insane... we were at verizon from 9:00 a.m. to 12 noon, which, considering how crazy this whole iPhone 6 thing was, wasn't too bad. ultimately, even though i would have been perfectly content with a basic rather than a smartphone, a droid is what i ended up with - it was the most inexpensive route that the verizon lady could come up with together with a slight change in our calling plan and the activation of my little iPad's cellular component. quite frankly, she made me all dizzy with her manipulations - i just needed a frickin' phone so that when i need to make a call, i can! in any case, it was all good - i wasn't expecting to own a smartphone and now i have to learn how to use it, plus i don't have to depend on wifi or tom's iPhone hotspot when i need to use the iPad. the bottom line is that i cannot live without internet and i am not ashamed to admit that :) the other lesson learned here is that one needs to make sure that no new iPhone is being launched on the day that you decide to go to the verizon store! after that, it was major grocery shopping and then finally back home to deltaville. long day, certainly, but not over yet.
while we were having dinner that evening, there was a frantic knocking by our neighbor. apparently, little tinkerbelle, one of their three yorkies, had fallen in the water! our neighbor is 83 and has parkinson disease. her husband is 87. they don't move too quickly obviously. tom and i were out there immediately with flashlights and tinkerbelle was nowhere to be found for what seemed like a good long while. the husband wasn't even aware of what was happening. the wife was nearly hysterical. what we think happened was that the little dog managed to get herself trapped in a space under the floating dock and that is why we couldn't find her. however, eventually, tom saw her - she was already limp and underwater, not on the surface - and he fished her out. i immediately began compressions. she was cyanotic, her tongue was blue, pupils were dilated and her sphincter released. for all practical purposes, she was dead. the husband finally came out of their sailboat - the dog is his favorite of the three, he sometimes comes alone to the marina with her - and he was totally devastated, giving her up for dead, but i just kept working on her and a greal deal of water and foam came out. she was so tiny and it was hard to see anything but her nostrils were flaring slightly and i said, "she's alive!" the husband decided to take her to an emergency vet. the closest vet hospital to the marina is in hartfield nearby but after office hours, they refer emergencies to yorktown or richmond, neither of which are close. when they left, tinkerbelle was breathing and moving her head. tom took down their phone number and said he'd research the vets and call them with information but they never answered the phone. it turned out that they drove like mad to kilmarnock after finding the hartfield animal hospital close. they went to a regular emergency room - in a people hospital - where they were told that dogs were not treated there but that they should put her down on the floor as she was breathing. all three of them came back to the marina that night but we got a call prior saying that they were on their way back and that tinkerbelle was alive! in any case, she looked much better than when they had left. later that night, the husband took the little dog to a vet in richmond while the wife stayed on the boat with the other two dogs. the vet suggested to keep her at the animal hospital over the weekend. it was a long day and an even longer night but the story at least had a happy ending. tinkerbelle is 12 years old and really a very charming little thing. it could all have ended so horribly. and now, of course, tom and i are heroes :)
we have just a little more than a week to get all our stuff together and be prepared to say goodbye to deltaville for this year as we may not stop here again on our way south after the annapolis show. i don't suppose that anyone ever feels prepared for the adventure of a lifetime but like everything else in life, we'll play it by ear and see what happens.
on friday, september 19, 2014, we drove over to williamsburg, VA, which is where the closest verizon store to deltaville is located. silly us - we completely forgot about the iPhone 6 debut! no choice but to get in line - it was an hour and a half drive to get there. tom ran off to lowe's while i stayed in line. since i hadn't had a phone all this time, tom and i had been using facetime on his iPhone and on my iPad to communicate when we were separated but that only works when i have wifi. i tried to get the password to the verizon store's wifi and explained that the reason i was there was because i had no phone - mine had failed the swimming test! i wasn't given the password but was offered a phone to use when i needed to make the call to tom to let him know when i was getting close. it's funny - it never even occurred to me to borrow someone else's phone! the line was outside of the store and when i got close to the door, i noticed the blankets on the floor. apparently, some people had come the evening before to line up and camped there overnight - to get a new phone! insane... we were at verizon from 9:00 a.m. to 12 noon, which, considering how crazy this whole iPhone 6 thing was, wasn't too bad. ultimately, even though i would have been perfectly content with a basic rather than a smartphone, a droid is what i ended up with - it was the most inexpensive route that the verizon lady could come up with together with a slight change in our calling plan and the activation of my little iPad's cellular component. quite frankly, she made me all dizzy with her manipulations - i just needed a frickin' phone so that when i need to make a call, i can! in any case, it was all good - i wasn't expecting to own a smartphone and now i have to learn how to use it, plus i don't have to depend on wifi or tom's iPhone hotspot when i need to use the iPad. the bottom line is that i cannot live without internet and i am not ashamed to admit that :) the other lesson learned here is that one needs to make sure that no new iPhone is being launched on the day that you decide to go to the verizon store! after that, it was major grocery shopping and then finally back home to deltaville. long day, certainly, but not over yet.
while we were having dinner that evening, there was a frantic knocking by our neighbor. apparently, little tinkerbelle, one of their three yorkies, had fallen in the water! our neighbor is 83 and has parkinson disease. her husband is 87. they don't move too quickly obviously. tom and i were out there immediately with flashlights and tinkerbelle was nowhere to be found for what seemed like a good long while. the husband wasn't even aware of what was happening. the wife was nearly hysterical. what we think happened was that the little dog managed to get herself trapped in a space under the floating dock and that is why we couldn't find her. however, eventually, tom saw her - she was already limp and underwater, not on the surface - and he fished her out. i immediately began compressions. she was cyanotic, her tongue was blue, pupils were dilated and her sphincter released. for all practical purposes, she was dead. the husband finally came out of their sailboat - the dog is his favorite of the three, he sometimes comes alone to the marina with her - and he was totally devastated, giving her up for dead, but i just kept working on her and a greal deal of water and foam came out. she was so tiny and it was hard to see anything but her nostrils were flaring slightly and i said, "she's alive!" the husband decided to take her to an emergency vet. the closest vet hospital to the marina is in hartfield nearby but after office hours, they refer emergencies to yorktown or richmond, neither of which are close. when they left, tinkerbelle was breathing and moving her head. tom took down their phone number and said he'd research the vets and call them with information but they never answered the phone. it turned out that they drove like mad to kilmarnock after finding the hartfield animal hospital close. they went to a regular emergency room - in a people hospital - where they were told that dogs were not treated there but that they should put her down on the floor as she was breathing. all three of them came back to the marina that night but we got a call prior saying that they were on their way back and that tinkerbelle was alive! in any case, she looked much better than when they had left. later that night, the husband took the little dog to a vet in richmond while the wife stayed on the boat with the other two dogs. the vet suggested to keep her at the animal hospital over the weekend. it was a long day and an even longer night but the story at least had a happy ending. tinkerbelle is 12 years old and really a very charming little thing. it could all have ended so horribly. and now, of course, tom and i are heroes :)
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| anne and tinkerbelle |
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| tinkerbelle |
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| try keeping track of these three in the dark! |
we have just a little more than a week to get all our stuff together and be prepared to say goodbye to deltaville for this year as we may not stop here again on our way south after the annapolis show. i don't suppose that anyone ever feels prepared for the adventure of a lifetime but like everything else in life, we'll play it by ear and see what happens.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
drosophila melanogaster.
the common fruit fly. WHY does this pest merit a blog entry? as we approach fall and the harvest season and if you live anywhere near a farm that grows cantaloupe or tomatoes, you will have fruit flies. WE have fruit flies. sigh... when we first moved to deltaville late in 2008, we did not encounter them until the next year around harvest time and we wondered what we did to merit this infestation! as it turns out, it is common enough and folks were pretty blasé about it (just cover your wine glass, etc.) i doubt that i could EVER be blasé about ANY bugs though. granted, fruit flies do not bite or sting but STILL! don't have any bananas lying around - these guys love them. they go right through your screen doors. they are tiny. i once watched, fascinated, as a little fruit fly squeezed itself through one of the regular open squares on my screen door. grrrr.... they sell traps at the hardware store but you can make your own easily enough with a soda bottle. cut the top off, load the bottom part with bait - wine, rotten bananas, orange juice, etc. and put a drop of dishwashing detergent to break the surface tension then put the top back on upside down after removing the cap. but the secret is to put your trap OUTSIDE your home. if the little buggers can squeeze through the holes in your screens to come inside, they can do the same thing to go outside. keeping the trap on your kitchen counter to get the flies that are already inside only guarantees that you will attract more flies from outside. put the trap OUTSIDE and they will leave your home. anyway, that is my two cents. we thought we got away from the fruit flies when we left deltaville a couple of weeks ago. no such luck - they had them in solomons and they had them in cambridge. bugs are bad enough to begin with but when they deliberately defy the screens on my doors and windows, i seriously take offense.
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okay. on to cruising. the original plan was to leave cambridge early in the morning and pick up some fuel at calvert marina in solomons before dropping the hook and relaxing the afternoon away. this did not happen because of the strong winds that morning. this is typical of cruising. weather dictates everything and every cruiser knows this. the winds died down around noon so by the time we got to solomons, the fuel dock was closed. no problem. we dropped the anchor, took consuelo out in the dinghy, had dinner, etc. etc. i actually went to bed early for a change! so tired... the next morning, consuelo woke us both up at 6:30 and as soon as we were ready, we pulled up the anchor and headed toward the calvert marina fuel dock to tie up there and wait for it to open. as it turns out, the fuel dock attendant called in sick and no one else could take his place until around noon so we went over to the solomons yachting center's fuel dock instead. more expensive, so we didn't pick up as much as we had intended to. we will be back anyway on our way up to annapolis next month but well, the best laid plans....
headed back to deltaville as i write this. well, at least that is the plan. gonna be a long day plus we still have to cross the mouth of the potomac. every now and then, i have to remind myself that we don't HAVE to be anywhere specific. we can stop wherever tonight and make deltaville the next day instead. ahhhhh.... the cruising life!
okay. on to cruising. the original plan was to leave cambridge early in the morning and pick up some fuel at calvert marina in solomons before dropping the hook and relaxing the afternoon away. this did not happen because of the strong winds that morning. this is typical of cruising. weather dictates everything and every cruiser knows this. the winds died down around noon so by the time we got to solomons, the fuel dock was closed. no problem. we dropped the anchor, took consuelo out in the dinghy, had dinner, etc. etc. i actually went to bed early for a change! so tired... the next morning, consuelo woke us both up at 6:30 and as soon as we were ready, we pulled up the anchor and headed toward the calvert marina fuel dock to tie up there and wait for it to open. as it turns out, the fuel dock attendant called in sick and no one else could take his place until around noon so we went over to the solomons yachting center's fuel dock instead. more expensive, so we didn't pick up as much as we had intended to. we will be back anyway on our way up to annapolis next month but well, the best laid plans....
headed back to deltaville as i write this. well, at least that is the plan. gonna be a long day plus we still have to cross the mouth of the potomac. every now and then, i have to remind myself that we don't HAVE to be anywhere specific. we can stop wherever tonight and make deltaville the next day instead. ahhhhh.... the cruising life!
Friday, September 12, 2014
cambridge.
we left oxford mid-morning and had a short run to cambridge where we tied up at the municipal marina. the fixed docks there were quite high and the finger pier was too short to go out through the side door. a lot of people were having problems getting on and off their boats. the MTOA members are an older group. if we were the young blood, you can just imagine.... since we had no neighbor yet on the port side, we dropped the dinghy and went exploring and found a new potential anchorage. that night, a big thunderstorm came in and it was an issue getting consuelo off the boat in the dark and in the rain. i thought she would just do her thing on the dock and come back but she sauntered off. i waited and waited and then decided that waiting was not a good idea. armed with my jacket and umbrella, it didn't make any difference - my nightgown was soaked by the time all was said and done. and consuelo had wandered off in the wrong direction apparently! in any case, getting back on the boat was another thing at low tide. later, in the light of day, i figured it was easier to get her up on the bridge first and then do the spiderman crawl to the side deck from the finger pier and bring her down the steps instead. i know, it's complicated. and where was tom? asleep, of course! i just went back to work after getting consuelo dried up and tucked in bed. she got an extra treat, too.
sunday was a drop-dead gorgeous day and we went biking around town and along the choptank shore. if i had to live in a house again, cambridge would probably be high on the list so long as it was one of those houses up on the hill. what a view some of those homes had! the choptank river is really lovely - i'd have to say that it is hands down our favorite chesapeake river. monday's weather wasn't that great and i spent most of the time at home working while tom helped the other arrivals dock.
the MTOA rendezvous started on tuesday. apparently, we had something like 56 boats show up for it and some other people arrived by car. at breakfast, they ran out of doughnuts -imagine what folks had to say about that! there were several presentations lined up for this three-day event and tom was speaking on the last day ("what's in your toolbox?"). we attended some of the others. i worked in between presentations that i wanted to attend and at night. breakfast, presentations, lunch, presentations, social hour, dinner... it was exhausting. consuelo got me up at 6:30 in the morning and i never got to bed before 1:00 a.m.
on wednesday, just before the social hour at 5:00 p.m., tom went on ahead because i had a few things to attend to. i made the mistake of: 1) deciding to go by bicycle to catch up with him and 2) using tom's bike instead of my own because his was on the outside and easier to get to. it is a citizen folding bike - its wheels are a lot smaller than mine so the balance is different. i had been riding up and down the docks all these days and had been just fine but when i got up on his bike and felt unbalanced, i stopped and put my foot down but the bike was already falling slowly on its side and pushed me to the left, straight into the water, backpack and all. i lost my sunglasses and both my phone (old) and my iPad mini (which i won in a contest) were in the backpack. one of my shoes came off, too. the bike, thankfully, stayed on the dock. it's the first time i've ever fallen into the water in all my years of boating. i suppose it was inevitable that it would happen at some point but believe me, it came as a big surprise. i am not clumsy so i'm not used to falling! i had a helluva time getting up on the neighbor's swim platform - the swim ladder was tied down and my backpack was full of water, weighing me down. good thing i have some upper body strength! in any case, i rushed to dry off my electronic devices, hoping to resuscitate them but really, i think it's a lost cause. the bike was okay so i left it where it lay. then i went to rescue my shoe - had to get back on the neighbor's boat and then into the dinghy which was tied up alongside and used a boathook to get my shoe which was floating just out of reach. i went back home, dried off and changed clothes. and then i picked up the bike and rode it to the dinner venue just like i had intended to in the first place. you know what they say about getting back on the horse. no one would ever have known what happened if i hadn't told tom. there had been no one on the docks at that time and yes, i know how lucky i am that i didn't get seriously hurt. i have a scratch on my left calf and a huge bruise on my right thigh but both were probably from the bicycle. i guess i'll have to get a smartphone now (finally) to replace my dead phone. and the iPad.... well, that hurt. they're not cheap and even though i won mine, after paying the bill at drum point marine, i wasn't thrilled about spending again. oh well, i will have new stuff and i didn't break any bones. just a bruised ego and a couple of superficial injuries. oh, and when tom told our neighbor, merrill, that he might find that his swim platform and deck were wet, his comment was "you didn't pee on it, did you???"
we spent thursday morning quietly at home. i was a little sore from the previous day's adventure and i had to work while tom was preparing the stuff for his presenation which, incidentally, was well received so much so that he was invited to speak at the MTOA rendezvous in daytona, FL in april of next year. that evening was the banquet at a restaurant called jimmie and sook's in downtown cambridge. it was taking a bit long and i was nervous about consuelo - we had forgotten to leave a light on for her - and i didn't want her to wait too long to go outside, but the dinner and awards ceremony and all those things were taking so long that when they announced for certain people to stand up, i stood up with them and then quietly slipped away without anyone (including tom) noticing. i was going to walk back to the marina but then it started to rain so i went back into the restaurant and snagged the poor shuttle bus driver (i knew there was a shuttle bus driver for the old and infirm haha and as i was leaving the restaurant, i happened to see the logo on the man's shirt) and told him that my 14-year-old dog had to go out to pee. you'd be surprised at how accommodating people can be. he even said he'd wait until she was done and bring me back to the restaurant if i wanted. by the time i got home, consuelo was ready to go. she took a few steps and peed right on the dock. sigh.... this is my life now - squeezing work in between tom's social life and my dog needing to go to the bathroom. i'm not complaining - i have a great view - it changes constantly! every day is an adventure! the reality: tom came home soon after (i sent him a text from my computer earlier to let him know i'd escaped from the banquet - you know, since i no longer have a working phone). he went to bed and i went to work.
we were supposed to leave first thing friday morning but it was too windy so i just rolled over and went back to sleep - i needed it. by noon, the wind had subsided a bit so we left for solomons. it has been a truly exhausting week but it was nice to see old friends and make new ones. and i still haven't seen enough of cambridge - it's a great town that's making a nice comeback.
sunday was a drop-dead gorgeous day and we went biking around town and along the choptank shore. if i had to live in a house again, cambridge would probably be high on the list so long as it was one of those houses up on the hill. what a view some of those homes had! the choptank river is really lovely - i'd have to say that it is hands down our favorite chesapeake river. monday's weather wasn't that great and i spent most of the time at home working while tom helped the other arrivals dock.
the MTOA rendezvous started on tuesday. apparently, we had something like 56 boats show up for it and some other people arrived by car. at breakfast, they ran out of doughnuts -imagine what folks had to say about that! there were several presentations lined up for this three-day event and tom was speaking on the last day ("what's in your toolbox?"). we attended some of the others. i worked in between presentations that i wanted to attend and at night. breakfast, presentations, lunch, presentations, social hour, dinner... it was exhausting. consuelo got me up at 6:30 in the morning and i never got to bed before 1:00 a.m.
on wednesday, just before the social hour at 5:00 p.m., tom went on ahead because i had a few things to attend to. i made the mistake of: 1) deciding to go by bicycle to catch up with him and 2) using tom's bike instead of my own because his was on the outside and easier to get to. it is a citizen folding bike - its wheels are a lot smaller than mine so the balance is different. i had been riding up and down the docks all these days and had been just fine but when i got up on his bike and felt unbalanced, i stopped and put my foot down but the bike was already falling slowly on its side and pushed me to the left, straight into the water, backpack and all. i lost my sunglasses and both my phone (old) and my iPad mini (which i won in a contest) were in the backpack. one of my shoes came off, too. the bike, thankfully, stayed on the dock. it's the first time i've ever fallen into the water in all my years of boating. i suppose it was inevitable that it would happen at some point but believe me, it came as a big surprise. i am not clumsy so i'm not used to falling! i had a helluva time getting up on the neighbor's swim platform - the swim ladder was tied down and my backpack was full of water, weighing me down. good thing i have some upper body strength! in any case, i rushed to dry off my electronic devices, hoping to resuscitate them but really, i think it's a lost cause. the bike was okay so i left it where it lay. then i went to rescue my shoe - had to get back on the neighbor's boat and then into the dinghy which was tied up alongside and used a boathook to get my shoe which was floating just out of reach. i went back home, dried off and changed clothes. and then i picked up the bike and rode it to the dinner venue just like i had intended to in the first place. you know what they say about getting back on the horse. no one would ever have known what happened if i hadn't told tom. there had been no one on the docks at that time and yes, i know how lucky i am that i didn't get seriously hurt. i have a scratch on my left calf and a huge bruise on my right thigh but both were probably from the bicycle. i guess i'll have to get a smartphone now (finally) to replace my dead phone. and the iPad.... well, that hurt. they're not cheap and even though i won mine, after paying the bill at drum point marine, i wasn't thrilled about spending again. oh well, i will have new stuff and i didn't break any bones. just a bruised ego and a couple of superficial injuries. oh, and when tom told our neighbor, merrill, that he might find that his swim platform and deck were wet, his comment was "you didn't pee on it, did you???"
we spent thursday morning quietly at home. i was a little sore from the previous day's adventure and i had to work while tom was preparing the stuff for his presenation which, incidentally, was well received so much so that he was invited to speak at the MTOA rendezvous in daytona, FL in april of next year. that evening was the banquet at a restaurant called jimmie and sook's in downtown cambridge. it was taking a bit long and i was nervous about consuelo - we had forgotten to leave a light on for her - and i didn't want her to wait too long to go outside, but the dinner and awards ceremony and all those things were taking so long that when they announced for certain people to stand up, i stood up with them and then quietly slipped away without anyone (including tom) noticing. i was going to walk back to the marina but then it started to rain so i went back into the restaurant and snagged the poor shuttle bus driver (i knew there was a shuttle bus driver for the old and infirm haha and as i was leaving the restaurant, i happened to see the logo on the man's shirt) and told him that my 14-year-old dog had to go out to pee. you'd be surprised at how accommodating people can be. he even said he'd wait until she was done and bring me back to the restaurant if i wanted. by the time i got home, consuelo was ready to go. she took a few steps and peed right on the dock. sigh.... this is my life now - squeezing work in between tom's social life and my dog needing to go to the bathroom. i'm not complaining - i have a great view - it changes constantly! every day is an adventure! the reality: tom came home soon after (i sent him a text from my computer earlier to let him know i'd escaped from the banquet - you know, since i no longer have a working phone). he went to bed and i went to work.
we were supposed to leave first thing friday morning but it was too windy so i just rolled over and went back to sleep - i needed it. by noon, the wind had subsided a bit so we left for solomons. it has been a truly exhausting week but it was nice to see old friends and make new ones. and i still haven't seen enough of cambridge - it's a great town that's making a nice comeback.
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| someone built a duck house |
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| cambridge from great marsh park |
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| cute playground climbing "thing" |
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| park bench :) |
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| hambrook street |
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| choptank river light replica/dockmaster office |
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| sunset at the cambridge municipal marina |
drum point marine.
on monday, labor day, we headed up to solomons. we were scheduled to have tadhana's aftercooler serviced at drum point marine, a tiny place at the very end of back creek. ordinarily, one takes a slip at one of the solomons marinas and the tech comes over to your boat and does the work there but we are "special" and drum point marine reserved their one and only "slip," if you can even call it that, at their boatyard for us so we just went ahead and tied up. many cruisers want it all at their marinas - swimming pool, wifi, clean bathrooms, well-appointed lounge, etc. this facility had NONE of that - it's a boatyard - but we brought our own house and as long as there is an outlet to plug into so that we can run the A/C, it's all good. it was VERY HOT that day and naturally, the one and only outlet available was in use by another boat. no one was around as it was a holiday so we were on our own until the next day. we had the ability to share the outlet so we just tied into it - it would have been absolutely miserable without A/C!
the folks at drum point marine have been extremely busy all summer and things are even busier for them now with fall approaching and what should probably have been a 4 to 6 hour job took 4 days while we just sat there and waited. but, as i have mentioned before, solomons is not a bad place to be "stuck." we had a slip and electricity. both tom and i had work to do and we had bicycles with us this time. what originally would have been a long walk to the grocery store in the heat was an easy bike ride. we also went to the annmarie sculpture garden and arts center which, although it is located on the water, has no dinghy access. having the bicycles really changes things - it is very liberating! there was a bicycle store nearby that we went to because tom's rear tire was a bit soft and they had a high-pressure MANUAL pump that inflated it in no time. they did my two tires as well and i was completely fascinated by the gadget - it sure beat the drama and three hours it took me to inflate those tires the last time. the other cool thing about that pump was that it didn't require an adapter for my tires, which is this tiny little thing i have to connect first before attaching the pump. i'm always afraid i will lose that adapter. i might have to investigate that pump further... we also went to the pet store to get consuelo one of those newfangled soft harnesses. as she gets older, i just feel better when she has a harness on all the time as she sometimes needs help hopping on and off the boat. the interesting thing is that consuelo no longer seems to object violently to being helped. it always used to be such a struggle as she would dance out of the way whenever i tried to grab her. sigh..... independent dogs, you know?
in any case, the aftercooler was cleaned and then reinstalled and we left for the choptank river on friday. the original plan had been to anchor at either la trappe creek or in oxford but we ended up taking a slip at town creek marina in oxford because the forecast was for another hot night, marina queens that we are... but oxford has the highland creamery, an ice cream place, and tom's brother lives there, too. instead of breaking out our own bicycles, we just borrowed the marina's courtesy bikes and headed out to town. all i can say is that i definitely missed my 21-speed, 26-inch wheel hybrid schwinn! it's quite possible that i lost all the calories from the ice cream on our way back to the boat.
the folks at drum point marine have been extremely busy all summer and things are even busier for them now with fall approaching and what should probably have been a 4 to 6 hour job took 4 days while we just sat there and waited. but, as i have mentioned before, solomons is not a bad place to be "stuck." we had a slip and electricity. both tom and i had work to do and we had bicycles with us this time. what originally would have been a long walk to the grocery store in the heat was an easy bike ride. we also went to the annmarie sculpture garden and arts center which, although it is located on the water, has no dinghy access. having the bicycles really changes things - it is very liberating! there was a bicycle store nearby that we went to because tom's rear tire was a bit soft and they had a high-pressure MANUAL pump that inflated it in no time. they did my two tires as well and i was completely fascinated by the gadget - it sure beat the drama and three hours it took me to inflate those tires the last time. the other cool thing about that pump was that it didn't require an adapter for my tires, which is this tiny little thing i have to connect first before attaching the pump. i'm always afraid i will lose that adapter. i might have to investigate that pump further... we also went to the pet store to get consuelo one of those newfangled soft harnesses. as she gets older, i just feel better when she has a harness on all the time as she sometimes needs help hopping on and off the boat. the interesting thing is that consuelo no longer seems to object violently to being helped. it always used to be such a struggle as she would dance out of the way whenever i tried to grab her. sigh..... independent dogs, you know?
in any case, the aftercooler was cleaned and then reinstalled and we left for the choptank river on friday. the original plan had been to anchor at either la trappe creek or in oxford but we ended up taking a slip at town creek marina in oxford because the forecast was for another hot night, marina queens that we are... but oxford has the highland creamery, an ice cream place, and tom's brother lives there, too. instead of breaking out our own bicycles, we just borrowed the marina's courtesy bikes and headed out to town. all i can say is that i definitely missed my 21-speed, 26-inch wheel hybrid schwinn! it's quite possible that i lost all the calories from the ice cream on our way back to the boat.
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| a tribute to the oyster tonger by antonio tobias mendez |
Monday, September 1, 2014
the armstrong private marina
it was back to the little wicomico river for us for the labor day weekend. we were headed north again, first to solomons for engine work at drum point marine and then to cambridge for another MTOA rendezvous the week after, but first, a stop at tommy and marie's place in reedville. on the 3-hour run to their place, however, the wind was from behind and we rolled and rolled. i was busy in front of the computer but when i looked up from it finally, i realized that i wasn't feeling too well. so i got up and stepped outside, waited a bit, then threw up and i was fine again. downwind is really not my favorite direction. in any case, it's not the first time that i've been seasick and it certainly won't be the last, but it was the first time i actually barfed in YEARS and on my own boat, no less! okay, that was probably too much information but that is what happened. yes, even i get seasick on occasion. it didn't help that i spent all that time in front of the computer screen either. in any case, i did what i always do on those occasions - get it over with - because i always feel MUCH better immediately after.
the armstrongs also happened to have family over that weekend: tommy's dad, tom, tommy's sister and tommy's sister's husband, tim. yup - tom, tom, tommy and tim. we all had a good time chit-chatting away the night. conversation with the armstrongs is always very stimulating and animated. consuelo, again, had to put up with suzie, the 1-year-old brittany spaniel. she was certainly long-suffering, my poor old girl.
one of the interesting things that happened was that tommy and marie had gotten some oyster spat and a couple of floating cages and all of that needed to be put together. since none of us had any experience with this, all four of us went out on the dock with the two dogs and a handout with instructions. the spat had been picked up earlier in the day and were in a cardboard box with a frozen bottle of water to keep them cool. there were two net-what-looked-like "socks" of 500 baby oysters each which tommy said felt like barnacles when he touched them. they were transferred to another plastic net what-looked-like an envelope which was then sealed and attached to these floating cages with cable ties and the cages were then tied to the dock pilings so that they wouldn't float away. and that was it. you are just supposed to rinse them off every once in a while. it will be interesting to go back later on and check them out to see how much they've grown. these were sterile oysters - they are not going to reproduce - but they would at least do some filtering and you could eat them when the time came. well, let's see - if they all make it, then that is a thousand oysters! yum...
tom also went deep sea diving to clean off our propeller that weekend. unfortunately, those oysters were not given any time to clean up the water. he said he couldn't see a thing underwater and had to go by feel. better him than me, but i told him to be VERY CAREFUL. there is vibrio going around the Bay these days!
in any case, as always, we had a GREAT time with our friends. they, on the other hand, maybe think it's cool to have guests they don't have to clean up after because we bring our own house? as an added bonus, because of the holiday weekend, i had no work so i didn't have that hanging over my head.
labor day..... we are closing in on fall!
the armstrongs also happened to have family over that weekend: tommy's dad, tom, tommy's sister and tommy's sister's husband, tim. yup - tom, tom, tommy and tim. we all had a good time chit-chatting away the night. conversation with the armstrongs is always very stimulating and animated. consuelo, again, had to put up with suzie, the 1-year-old brittany spaniel. she was certainly long-suffering, my poor old girl.
one of the interesting things that happened was that tommy and marie had gotten some oyster spat and a couple of floating cages and all of that needed to be put together. since none of us had any experience with this, all four of us went out on the dock with the two dogs and a handout with instructions. the spat had been picked up earlier in the day and were in a cardboard box with a frozen bottle of water to keep them cool. there were two net-what-looked-like "socks" of 500 baby oysters each which tommy said felt like barnacles when he touched them. they were transferred to another plastic net what-looked-like an envelope which was then sealed and attached to these floating cages with cable ties and the cages were then tied to the dock pilings so that they wouldn't float away. and that was it. you are just supposed to rinse them off every once in a while. it will be interesting to go back later on and check them out to see how much they've grown. these were sterile oysters - they are not going to reproduce - but they would at least do some filtering and you could eat them when the time came. well, let's see - if they all make it, then that is a thousand oysters! yum...
tom also went deep sea diving to clean off our propeller that weekend. unfortunately, those oysters were not given any time to clean up the water. he said he couldn't see a thing underwater and had to go by feel. better him than me, but i told him to be VERY CAREFUL. there is vibrio going around the Bay these days!
in any case, as always, we had a GREAT time with our friends. they, on the other hand, maybe think it's cool to have guests they don't have to clean up after because we bring our own house? as an added bonus, because of the holiday weekend, i had no work so i didn't have that hanging over my head.
labor day..... we are closing in on fall!
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