oxford.

we left the little wicomico river the next day for solomons but as we approached the patuxent river, after checking the weather and all, it was decided that we would cross the chesapeake to the choptank instead as it was forecasted to be very windy the next day and so it turned out to be a very long cruising day, from 8:15 a.m. to 5:25 p.m.  we anchored off of town creek in oxford and quickly dropped the dinghy as someone was quite anxious to get ashore.  back in deltaville a couple weeks before, we had switched out anchors to our "storm" anchor, the manson supreme.  it fit the existing anchor roller - barely - so no changes had to be made, and it's definitely not as pretty as our shiny, stainless steel bruce but it is a rocna knock-off and got very good reviews.  the nice thing about it is that it is self-launching  so no more giving the anchor a push to get it going.   and it certainly held!  as we were pulling it up the next day, going forward on it to wiggle it out of the mud, the wind took the boat and moved her backwards, and on a short chain, the whole boat jerked and shuddered to a stop!  tom and i looked at each other - WHOA!  now that was a HOLD if ever i saw one!  the only thing is the galvanized seems to bring up more mud than the stainless did, probably because it is not as slick.  good thing we have a salt water washdown - tom cleans and i drive (for a change!).

our manson supreme

we moved the next day from the anchorage to a slip at the hinckley boat yard which is right beside tom's brother's house.  we were in oxford to babysit henry's dogs while he went out of town for a few days.  granted, we had arrived a tad earlier than needed, however, the weather forecast for the next few days was less than ideal so it was good to be somewhere protected.  tom then discovered that my bicycle's 22-year-old front tire was just about to blow out so the timing was good - we would have a vehicle and be near "civilization."  it rained that night and the next day the wind blew all the water into the chesapeake and flooded everyone in the region out.  the nice thing about living on a boat is that as the flood waters rise, so does the boat.  unfortunately, if you have to step outside as we did to get new tires for my bicycle, you had to wade.  it was knee deep crossing the street and consuelo had to swim that one.  we drove to a bicycle shop in st. michaels, got new tires and a hand pump, then went to the grocery store.  we had to wade again on the way back home and consuelo's facial expression was priceless: "what? again?  you've got to be kidding!"  she got rinsed down at home.

everyone along the chesapeake was flooded out including poor tangier island (photo courtesy of nancy lewis)

something else came up which has managed to shake up our plans a bit.  tom was asked to join SAIL magazine's 2014 ICW snowbird rally as a technical adviser.  it's sort of a convoy of southbound boats with organized stops at several places along the way. it starts in hampton, VA and ends in miami, FL.  i was +/- about it simply because it was our first time to head south and i sort of wanted it to be a "private" thing.  i have never been and will never be good with "groups" but i also realized that it would be a good opportunity for tom so we talked about it a bit and in the end, we agreed that he should be a part of the team.  the thing is that it takes us quite a way from our turning-off point at jacksonville, FL to head up the st. john's river to sanford where we have reservations at the monroe harbour marina to sit out the winter while we make up our minds about what we want to do next.  plus my brother, mikey, lives in orlando, about a 45-minute drive away.  the rally would probably put us off a month from the original plan of getting to sanford by mid-december! but we are cruising liveaboards now and are supposed to be flexible.  i mostly worry about finding the time to work at my job, keeping my home clean, trying to make consuelo comfortable in her old age, and, for the most part, finding some kind of routine in a lifestyle that is hardly anything but!  perhaps my attitude would be different if i didn't have to work for a living at all but i do and that is that.  in any case, tom has said "yes" to the powers-that-be so there it is.  if there is anything about cruising that's a given, it's "oops, change of plans."  better get used to it.

in the meantime, we will be sitting in oxford until the middle of the week and then will head to annapolis next for the sailboat show where tom has a presentation on october 12, 2014. who knows what else will come up before then!

one more thing:  neighbor sent me a great photo of my two ducks.  i do miss them.