from the annapolis sailboat show, the first stop was solomons - an easy run for us. we fueled up at the calvert marina fuel dock before dropping the hook. we took in 317 gallons - yikes! but it cost 30 cents a gallon less than anywhere else, which is a substantial savings, and that should take us to the florida border. we were pretty ass-heavy with the fuel tanks full like that - the bow rose, exposing bottom paint, and there was no bottom paint visible at the stern.
we dropped the anchor at our usual spot on back creek past zahniser's mooring balls, between the museum and calvert marina's floating docks where we normally go for consuelo's bathroom runs. it is good to be early at the anchorage especially this time of year - there is a huge migration after each of the boat shows in annapolis and, generally, one does not like to travel with the horde but we didn't really have a choice since tom worked the last day of the sailboat show. boats just kept coming and trying to squeeze themselves in, anchoring on top of us - you're kidding, right? i sent tom out there - "tom, do something!" oh, but it was entertaining, too. one guy dropped his anchor and held on to the rode and then gave it a little tug and waited. oh. my. god. tom definitely shooed that one away and if he hadn't, i certainly would have! good lord... so the choices are: 1) get to the anchorage early and make sure you're aboard and watching while these clowns try to anchor on top of you so you can shoo them away; or 2) get to the anchorage late and worry about not getting a spot. bottom line: it's just best not to hang with the crowd, especially since a lot of them appear to either not know what they are doing or have no sense of personal space. or even a sense of perception for that matter! in fact, late that night, one of the sailboats dragged into a raftup of two sailboats! oh well, at least it wasn't into us!
we left at o'dark early the next morning. the forecast for the next several days was not good and in fact, the forecast for the afternoon was not good either. instead of heading south and dealing with the potomac river mouth and getting beat up, we went east into the sun, across the chesapeake, into hooper strait, and then to tangier sound. with that route, we missed all the rough stuff, thank goodness. then it was south on tangier sound to the little annemesex river to crisfield where we planned to sit a day while the weather did its thing. we were in our slip by 1300h and already the wind had picked up so it was nice to be hunkered down.
on the way to crisfield, however, we had a little bit of drama. here we were, patting ourselves on the back for taking this route and avoiding a seriously unpleasant ride - i tell you, it's not a good thing to be too complacent or smug. apparently, the solenoid on the forward head switch failed and essentially, the toilet got stuck on "fill" after it was flushed. the bathroom floor flooded and dumped a bunch of water into the bilge. since there is no drain in that floor, the water rose up, went into the cabinet under the sink and drained through the hole where the wires come up from the engine room. ugh... we wondered why the bilge counter was going off and tom discovered the situation when he went below to look for his phone. what a nasty surprise. anyway, i had to pump the flood waters out and then tom tried to fix it underway but he needed a part so the only thing we could do was turn off the water pressure to stop the constant flow. at crisfield, tom ran off to look for parts which the local boatyard said would not arrive until the next day so he jerry rigged something so that we could use that toilet and turn the water pressure back on. unfortunately, the valve he used is very sensitive to being completely turned to the "off" position and i had to clean up flood waters again after i failed to turn the switch all the way. sigh... the part that tom needed arrived the next day and now everything is all fixed. in the meantime, we got wind and rain while we were at crisfield although not to extent that we thought we would. someone else besides us got the really big bad weather this time. what was funny was that if you logged on to marine traffic on the internet, you would have seen that the chesapeake was devoid of pleasure boats. EVERYONE who had AIS was staying put where they were.
on thursday, october 16, 2014, we left crisfield at o'dark early for hampton, VA. between it being so early and all the other things that i had to do, i completely forgot to bring up the fenders until we were well into the river. there was some wind and waves splashing over the bow and one wave got me good while i was on the side deck putting away lines grrrr... we went south on tangier sound and waved at tangier island as we passed. we wanted to stop by and say hi and bye to milton but the weather did not cooperate and we were running out of time as we were scheduled for the hampton snowbird rendezvous on the 16th. it was rough where the sound joined the chesapeake and it was rough on the Bay as well with the wind on the nose. in the late morning, i staggered my way to the galley to find breakfast and a little later, tom came running from the pilothouse yelling "bilge counter says 23!!!" which meant that the bilge pump went off 23 times - BIG PANIC - but where is the water coming from?? as it turned out, every time we flew up into the air and came down with the waves, so did the bilge float! tom checked the bilge - no, we were NOT taking in water phew but for a while there.... ack!
in any case, 10 hours of this endless up and down, banging and crashing before we finally got to hampton. as we turned the corner from the Bay to hampton roads, we were greeted by dolphins :) then it was up the hampton river and finally, we squeezed ourselves into slip number 4 at the hampton public piers. i say squeezed because we are, for all practical purposes, rafted up with the krogen next to us - it is tight! tom hosed down the boat as we were remarkably salty and i took care of consuelo and getting us registered. we did arrive in time to attend the reception for the snowbird rendezvous and it was really nice to see our old friends from last year but tom and i did the eat and run thing because he had a roast in the oven. before we ran off though, we managed to win two prizes in the raffle - an inflatable PFD and two nights at the deltaville marina in jackson creek - pretty cool, huh?
well, and we are here for three days of education and cruiser camaraderie and oh yeah, food! looking forward to it except that tonight, we are both just about dead from being beat up all day. it will be good to sit for a while - again.
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