Woke to calm, beautiful waters this morning after last night’s thunderstorm. Water went from calm blue to choppy grey in about two minutes.
Wow. The weather can change in an instant.Calm waters at Slaughters Marina as we prepare to depart. Still looks a little grey in this photo. Bad lighting!
Perfect weather for breakfast on the bridge. Zucchini bread from Emily’s. Delicious!
A little leery of how big of waves might be left on the Chesapeake after the storm and happily surprised to find less than 2 foot chop. We were in wide open and deep water most of the way. Because it was Saturday, lots more boats out and about than we’ve usually seen.
Lots of sail boats and small power boats out. Saw lots of watermen’s boats out too. Based on the fleet coming back into the Oxford Boatyard, most were out with their friends and family for the day.Clusters of houses along the shore not as frequent as in North Carolina and Virginia. Sweet house along the river. Homes here are much less flamboyant than they are further south. And a lot of them are very secluded.Another sweet, secluded home.
We arrived around noon and did a little exploring, ending up at the Robert Morris Inn supposedly one of the oldest inns in the country. The food was delicious. Gazpacho soup (mine with lump crab meat) and chicken salad sandwiches (which sound ordinary, but were anything but….cranberries, celery and red onion!)
Perfect temperatures to enjoy an early evening cocktail on the bridge.
You get the idea of what kind of sailing community Oxford is with this sunset view of the marina we are in.Cliff brings cocktail hour snacks up to the bridge deck.A glass of wine (or two!) on the bridge at sunset.Still water made a pretty reflection of the gorgeous Jeanneau moored next to us.
Slaughters Marina is in a very remote and tranquil area on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The people here were worth the trip. The dock master (Robert) was helpful and garrulous. His instructions on getting to a local market involved cutting through parking lots to “avoid highway 51” and taking more than circuitous routes in the marina’s loaner vehicle. The “one that worked” was missing when we wanted to use it and the alternatives were a truck with no air conditioning “that might start” and another car with “iffy air conditioning” and a driver’s side window that did not roll down. Thankfully, Josh the GM of the place decided to drive us to town in his air conditioned, fully operational Suburban. The plus of this journey was his insistence that we stop at Emily’s roadside vegetable stand which turned out to be much more than that. I will blame him for the pounds I expect to gain from the delicious ice cream they sell.
Pretty view from Emily’sEmily’s featured “pick your own flowers” field alongside a huge sunflower field. Beautiful.Cliff checks out…with two quarts of ice cream and some other non-essentials.
We were “treated” to a rip-roaring thunderstorm last night. From tranqul waters to washing machine in less than 10 minutes. Reminded us that you really need to be respectful of Mother Nature.
Wow. The weather can change in an instant.
This sign was in the dock master’s office….sent it to Jassa who turned 13 this year:-)
Not that the Solomons need to be escaped from., but after 5 days of rainy, windy weather, we were definitely ready to get going. And today was a perfect day to do so. Calm — actually glassy waters. A light breeze — just enough to keep us cool. A short trip ahead of us. Thirteen miles as the crow flies (I have not seen any crows), but 33 miles by water. An easy trip.
Blue skies and calm waters! Woo hoo! We’re on our way again.Remember those confusing day marks I talked about….here’s a new one. What the heck does SH mean?!Maybe the bird knows what this marker means. We sure didn’t. But the charts showed deep water all around, so we passed to the right in hopes of avoiding the huge wake that power boat was kicking up. We learned the hard way that big wakes create the kind of rocking and rolling that sends things flying below. We are MUCH better at securing everything (from bottles of opened wine, to cosmetics, half-empty coffee cups and even the Keurig coffee maker) before we get underway. It only took two red wine “accidents” to train us.
Houses on the shore range from “been in the family for years” to fancy places that look slightly out of place. I didn’t spot any really over the top places — and not a tile roof in sight. Those architects from south Florida haven’t made their way up here yet!
We saw a huge ship along the way and then noticed a pod of gleaming white storage tanks just past the tree line at the water’s edge. A natural gas pipeline we think. Strange to see it in this beautiful environment. Always think of pipelines crossing scraggly rural areas and jutting into commercial ports. There is also a nuclear plant on the Chesapeake. The SpringCove Marina had a pretty scary warning sign about it.
We are on Taylor Island at the Slaughter Creek Marina. Very rural. Difference between this spot and White Point is that there is a restaurant on the premises. A pretty good one. I had soft shell crabs — in these parts they call them “soft crabs.” Meaty and delicious.
The swimming pool beckoned as the Cubs seemed to be on a losing track. We were wrong. The Cubs won while we were swimming with two toddlers, a harried mother and a yappy dog. Correction. The dog wasn’t swimming, just patrolling the pool area and barking like mad with every move we made. Not restful, but definitely cooling.
Think we’ll stay here another day. No schedule, remember?!
Rain stopped long enough to take a stroll around the grounds of the Spring Cove Marina. Wonderful landscaping. Bicycles (too much rain). Kayaks (ditto). Looks like we’ll be able to get away tomorrow.
This is the amenity we used the most:-)
Cliff managed to arrange for an oil change so we are heading off for the next leg of our journey with all systems “go.”
Thought this map might be useful for you in imagining our trip. Solomons are shown in the lower left hand area of this map. We’ll head to Eastern Shore and ultimately St. Michaels tomorrow. We’ll meet up with Gary & Carolyn Kreutz in Annapolis for a few days before we end up in Galesville to prepare the boat for storage here.These folks are a long way from home. Great name….it’s from the Song of Hiawatha….”and the bullfrog, the Dahinda, thrust his head into the moonlight, fixed his yellow eyes upon him, sobbed and sank beneath the surface.”Proximity to air base brought a mini-air show this morning.
A great day to be in port. We’ve seen a half dozen or so sailboats heading out and wonder about their destinations. It is no wonder that boating on the Chesapeake tilts toward sailing — the wind driven chop is a cinch for sailboats and the theoretical (i.e. mathematically calculated) maximum wave heights here are estimated to be ~10 feet. Compare that with Lake Michigan’s ~30 foot max and you’ll get an idea of the difference.
Weather forecast for Thursday is looking good for departure across the Chesapeake to the Eastern Shore.
In the meantime, I’m taking advantage of the excellent wifi and doing some research for our trip to Europe in September.
The day arrived mockingly bright and beautiful. I contemplated our decision to head out into rainstorms yesterday and was gratified when I heard the rumble of thunder behind those bright white clouds:-)
Intermittent showers. Thunder — far off, we never saw any lightning. We busied ourselves with mundane things like laundry, trash disposal, counter wiping, dusting, dish washing and meal making. A cool breeze on the top deck allowed for cocktail hour up top. Cliff brilliantly thought of moving our deck chairs under the forward canopy so they would be dry. Everything is drenched from yesterday’s torrent. A lovely fresh water rinse for Dot Calm. Not a bit of brackish salt or muddy river water to be seen.
Thunderstorms remain the forecast for the remainder of the week. We’ll keep an eye out for an opportunity to cross to the eastern shore. And in the meantime, enjoy our stay in Spring Cove.
Here’s the weather forecast we looked at yesterday. Pretty grim.
Decided to make a run for it from White Point to the Solomon Islands. No internet out on the head wall where we were moored, so we walked up to the pool house at 6:30 am and tuned in to Weatherbug. Ugh. Rain. Rain. Rain. But no thunderstorms today so we decided to go. An uncomfortable ride, but not terrifying (we’ve done that before!)
Storm clouds ahead as we left. The water got MUCH more unsettled — waves 2-3 feet and coming at us from every direction. And RAIN! Everything on the boat it soaked.Leaks we had no idea about! We’ve been crowing about how snug our cockpit is until today. The bottom edge developed a constant spray. We stuffed a handle rag into the gaps and ended up looking like “Ma and Pa Kettle Go Boating.” Oh well. It stopped the spray.The blue is RAIN!
We.are safely and calmly moored at Spring Cove Marina tonight and probably for the next several days. Thunderstorms predicted for the rest of the week. I can take rain and even fairly big waves….but as Cliff says “100 gazillion volts above your head” is to be avoided.
We felt guilty as we arrived asking for help on the rainy dock. The young lady who helped us was terrific — in spirit as well as ability!
Lots to do and see on the Solomons. Hopefully we’ll be able to tiptoe through the raindrops and see some of them in the coming (rainy) days.
Today’s journey was in one of the widest parts of the Potomac. Our route was arrow straight with one turn. Reminded us of motor sailing to South Haven….the horizon filled with nothing but sky — except we could see the shore on either side:-) And, this trip took only about 4 hours and it took us twice as long to get to South Haven. But the view of sky and water stretching across the horizon as we moved along was pretty much the same.
We are staying at White Point Marina again. Very nice people and they have a loaner car! We re-traced our steps to Las Portales Mexican restaurant too. We are both stuffed. What is it about Mexican restaurants? Maybe it’s us?!
Weather turned a bit today. I changed into long pants about 1/3 of the way to Kinsale (which is where White Point Marina is). And the weather forecast says we’ll have thunder storms tomorrow with high winds. We will probably stay put. And the owner of the marina has invited us to the White Point Yacht Club’s chicken dinner tomorrow night, an annual event called “Beer Butt Chicken.” Sounds fun and delicious. I spotted a HUGE outdoor grill at the clubhouse.
Mapped out some stops we’d like to make on our way to Annapolis and Galesville…Kent Island, the Solomons, Oxford, St. Michaels and a few more. Weather will be a big factor in how many we actually make. On the advice of our sailing friends, we’ve decided that calendars with “gotta be there” dates are dangerous and have no place aboard.
Hoping we get a bit of sun tomorrow. There is a lovely pool here that looks inviting.
No internet where we are docked…..so I will head up to the pool house later to load up some pictures for you.
A beeee-uuuuu-ti-ful day. Cool temperature. Light breeze. Sunshine sparks on the water. A cardinal calling from the bushes near the marina office.
Sunshine on the water makes me happy. Thank you John Denver.
Despite having about two months of cruising under our belt, I’m feeling like this segment of our trip is really what cruising is all about. We sort of had a schedule when we left Coral Gables on May 11 — “gotta be in Charleston by May 25!” And from Charleston the mission was to get to Washington DC by July 2 to have a couple days to prepare for our July 4 flight to California. But now….we really don’t have a schedule at all. We’ve got a very loose end date and “all the time in the world” to cruise.
Sunset view from last night.This is more like it! Cocktails on the bridge deck. It’s been so hot that we’ve spent hardly any time up top except for driving to the next location. Lovely to just relax, enjoy the views, watch little boats cruise up the river, listen to the birds and sip.
Our navigation system has a nifty feature that I call “breadcrumbs” — it marks and remembers the boat’s path on each trip. In Marathon, the path between our house and various watering holes was pretty thick with them. But as we cruised down the Potomac there were only the tracks from our upriver trip. That made navigation pretty much of a snap since all we had to do was follow the breadcrumbs (and look out for logs!)
We are staying in Colonial Beach tonight. We stayed there on the way up. We are skipping the trolley:-)
Spent yesterday running around to provision (bread, sandwich stuff, fresh produce, paper goods….& wine!) and visiting the marina in Maryland where we will put Dot Calm for the winter. Wanted to see the place and meet the people — and we were quite pleased. Left an arm’s length list of things we want done over the winter and have our fingers crossed that all will go well. It’s a long way off so I will definitely not start worrying about it ahead of time. Not quite sure if Cliff is in the same place.
We left National Harbor mid-morning for the easy cruise to Ocaquon Harbor Marina. Yesterday Washington DC got a deluge….nearly 2 1/2 inches of rain in one hour. A nice fresh water rinse for the boat, but we feared that it would also sweep lots of tree branches and other debris into the Potomac. Happily, that was not the case. I think that the rain and wind were so ferocious, that most debris was whisked downstream to the Chesapeake.
Eagle? We think so. Couldn’t get my camera in action soon enough for the definitive shot. BUT…definitely didn’t have the characteristic “eye” pattern on the under-wings of an osprey.
At any rate, we headed out to sparkling water, fresh (and cool!) breezes, bright skies, fluffy clouds and a pretty much empty river. The Potomac is 150 miles long — we were told this was the fourth longest river in the U.S. which is completely, utterly, positively NOT true. But it’s long in terms of taking it at 12-15mph! We are making three stops before we reach the Chesapeake…..which is 200 miles long with 11,684 miles of shoreline. You can understand how people spend years exploring it.
Today we will moor within a couple of miles of Belmont Bay Marina where we stayed on our way up the Potomac to Washington DC. Occaquan Harbor Marina is a bit closer to the old town – tho’ still an Uber ride away. The town has maintained its turn of the century charm with many original buildings and new ones that match the architecture wonderfully. We walked to a shady park at the end of the town’s main street and crossed a bridge to get a closer look at the river, a glimpse of white water rapids above and a view of a smallish lovely waterfall on the far side of the river. Learned that Ocaquan is the Algonquin Indian word for “end of the water” which the rapids made quite apparent.
New development in turn-of-the-century clothing. The developer did a great job on these condos I think.One of the oldest buildings in town.Another old — but much smaller original building.Look at that window! And the cute bird house below. Definitely rates “charming.”
It is nice to be “back on the water.” We enjoyed our interlude in California, of course, but the quiet rhythm of our boating life is quite addicting. Morning planning and navigation discussion along with a couple cups of coffee is a great way to start each day. The views from the bridge deck are amazing. Houses along the shore (most too far away to get a decent photo), osprey pairs urging their nearly fully grown offspring to take flight, seagulls, terns, cormorants and an occasional big splash of a fish (I am sure a GIANT one) that we’re not quite quick enough to see fill the day. There is “work” to be done as well: Keeping an eye out for floating logs, looking for the next navigational markers and keeping an eye on the depth finder. And writing the blog:-)
