Using Our Dorian Time In Solomons

02 - 08 September 2019

My very clever plan for avoiding moving the car down the east coast while we moved the boat south was just leaving it in the BWI parking lot. We would Uber and maybe rent a car or two as needed, but  it would be less hassle than we had on the way up. After we got to Brunswick we could rent one last car while preparing to leave the boat for the rest of the year, then Uber down to Jax, then fly to BWI for the boat show, picking up the car at the airport. 

My plan lasted less than 72 hours in the face of Dorian. We clearly had some time on our hands waiting for Dorian to do its thing and finally turn right out to sea. We were stuck in Solomons without a car for maybe a week, and that is about a week too long. We switched gears and one day we picked it up at the Baltimore airport and drove it down to Solomons. We had lunch at Newk's in Annapolis on the way. We used it for a few days, then shuttled it down to the Richmond airport. There we had lunch at a fried chicken place downtown called Hot Chick. Wow. Some of the best fried chicken ever, rivaling Hattie B's and Porch.

Back in Solomons we topped up the water tanks, and had to remove one of the solar panels again to make side access from the little finger pier at the fixed docks more practical. We'll be looking at that arch again at the boat show. Having the solar panels mounted up out of the way on the arch, plus another one between, was going to be nice.

I did some review for my upcoming meeting and a little bit of paperwork. We got a hotel one night to enjoy some of the niceties civilization has to offer while fringes of Dorian passed by. It drenched the area and blew some things around, but nothing substantial.

The boat engine had briefly stalled on our approach to the floating dock there in Solomons and I discovered that the auxiliary fuel pump appeared to have stopped working. By itself that should not have been the cause of the stall. It is after all, auxiliary. But it was very nice for fuel polishing, and almost essential for easily swapping out fuel filters, which we were now doing every other tank fill up. We probably need to get our tank professionally cleaned out. I ordered a highly rated pump, and picked up a spare at a local auto parts store that looked a lot like the old one.

Installing the ordered pump required me to lower myself down into the aft lazerette, not my favorite thing as its only opening at the top is small, and I am not. I tweaked my back a little bit doing the pump swap out but the new pump works great, although if the engine is off it sounds like an electric woodpecker. I'll work to be able to replace the next one (or the one after that) without having to get inside the lazerette again.

We did laundry again and some more provisioning, but even after doing our chores and such we still had some time on our hands, some of which I spent admiring the wildlife, acting casual (inside joke).

sv-hiatus.blogspot.com

Back to Solomons - Again

01 Sep 2019

When we were able to escape the muck in Tangier we headed out the inlet and into the bay again, resuming our favorite game, dodging container ships. Note that all the ships appear to be heading north. Between ships we started getting a cell signal and saw that hurricane Dorian had abandoned Alabama and was now heading up the very coast we were headed towards. After some quick negotiations we decided that was too much adventure for us, and we headed back north, again.

We got back to Solomons Island again, initially staying at the floating dock where the transient boats go. Well the ducks must have had a party on the dock after we went to sleep, because when we woke up they had left us this. I didn't realize ducks were so... prolific.

If Dorian approached closely we would be kicked off the floating dock, so we picked up a slip off one of the fixed docks one up from the restaurant, warping in again without any help from the shore. I have a few smudges to buff out off the sides, but it was better than bumping into another boat. Since we don't have a rub rail for this sort of thing I'm thinking of getting some of those flat fenders for the job. We settled in for several days while Dorian passed.

sv-hiatus.blogspot.com

Tangier Island

31 August 2019

On our way down the bay we saw this wreck near the eastern shore, perched on the one patch of skinny water in the area. I think we passed by too far to the west on our way up to see it. I can't decide if it was placed here intentionally, since it seems to have been used for target practice. If not, someone had a really bad day.

As we closed in on Tangier Island we started losing cell service, almost like one of those scary movies.

The dock is on an inlet that kind of divides the island, with water rushing back and forth with the tides, which were slightly offset on either side of the island. The marina is Park’s Marina, and 88 year old Mr. Park was there on the dock giving instructions. I’m sure each of us was thinking “what a weird accent”, and that combined with our hearing there was not nearly as much communicating as talking. But an interesting guy. His daughter is the 65 year old doctor running the clinic on the island.

We were supposed to be on the bulkhead, but the folks already there decided to stay another day. The old wooden docks had tiny finger piers so we had to back in so we could get off the boat. Heather backed us up to the slip and started the turn in, but again the current was really pushing us sideways so we really had to warp us in with quite a bit of reverse engine power. We made it in without contacting the sailboats on either side so that’s a win.

We started to take a walk in search of dinner. The plaque below was on the way into "town". It took us a while before we saw a car rather than golf carts, and later we saw one truck. Other than that it was walking and golf carts to get around the island.

We had run slightly aground in the mud approaching the dock, and once in we had 0.4 to 0.2 feet and falling, until we were definitely solidly nestled in the mud. Half tide rising wasn’t until 10:30 in the morning, so we weren’t going to be getting an early start. But the weather was beautiful and cool. There was a nice breeze but the gusts were getting well into the teens, which is nice enough sitting at the dock, but could become trouble when we are trying to leave. We never did get a cell signal while on the island, and I'm not sure Mr. Park has heard of wifi, so we had a little bit of a news blackout on the weather front for 12-16 hours.

Next stop is Cape Charles, another place on the Eastern shore that we haven’t been to before. Plan A is to stay two days so we don’t go through Norfolk on the holiday weekend, but hurricane Dorian may put enough pressure on us to go for it anyway.

sv-hiatus.blogspot.com

Back to Solomons

30 August 2019

Okay, so Heather got a few more shots of our last sunrise in Annapolis.

We fueled up a little farther up the creek, then passed by the marina one last time.

One last shot of the Bay Bridge, which again looks to me like three or four bridges cobbled together.

In Solomons they had greeting jellyfish this time, zillions of them. This one was about three feet long.

Again, travel days on a sailboat are more work than it seems like they should be, and we hadn't travelled on the boat in two months. By the time we were arranged on the floating dock in Solomons after completing a pumpout, walking the boat back toward the end of the dock, and hooking up the electrical, I was overheated and exhausted. I laid down for a few minutes and didn’t get up for 12 hours.

The departure from Solomons was a little smoother, after a quick shower on board and another bag of ice H got from the office. We cruised down the Pax River and into the bay, making arrangements to go to a slip on Tangier Island instead of anchoring in Little Bay again, dodging crab pots. Little did we know (foreshadowing...).

sv-hiatus.blogspot.com

Leaving Annapolis

Late August 2019

I don’t know if it was the trip, or the slow realization that our time here was coming to a close, or a little of the residual lobster reaction for me, but we crashed hard once we got back to the boat. We slept 10-12 hours a day, with generous naps in the afternoon, and little accomplished while we were awake other than watching the bay.

After almost a week of that the looming deadline of our departure became too much, and we started making lists and trying to complete at least small tasks. For days the list kept getting longer instead of shorter. The picture below shows all the engine heat exchanger zincs since it was replaced. One of these things is not like the others.

We had initially planned on going to St. Michaels on our way down because of our aborted attempt on our way up, and that saved us (or at least me). We were supposed to leave on Monday for StM, but between our list and such we barely made our departure the following Friday, heading straight down to Solomons after an 18 hour day before and little sleep that night (for us, anyway). Below was our last Annapolis sunrise.

sv-hiatus.blogspot.com

Back to the Boat

10 Aug 2019

In the morning on our way south I tried to hit a breakfast place that was a little out of the way, JJs Cafe in Brockton. It took a while to get there, and when we did, there was a line out the door and over an hour wait. Nope, so on to our second choice, the Farmer's Daughter in Easton, which including the drive the wait wasn’t much shorter. It was good enough but pretty overpriced. Ehhh. Better luck next time.

We kept on getting back to the highway toward Providence, this time taking the other side of the river, proceeding down until arriving at my promised land – the Defender Marine Outlet store in Waterford CT. I managed to get into a couple hundred dollars worth of trouble, but I save almost as much! They had the shower hoses I ended up buying used after looking for a year. They also had fenders that were also ladders that would have been handy in Solomons. They even had a new zinc fish that was pretty cheap, which I placed for comparison against the one we've been using for more than a year. All that fish corrosion is corrosion that didn't happen somewhere on the boat.

After that we were both done with our road trip lists and intent on making it back to the boat. Heather drove the last hour or two, and we got back late, but we made it.

sv-hiatus.blogspot.com