Great Bridge

     We are at a free dock in Great Bridge, VA, part of Chesapeake, VA. Now that's not Chesapeake City which is in MD. I don't know why it's Chesapeake since we are no longer on Chesapeake Bay, we are in the ICW.

     Great Bridge is a nice little spot. Walking distance to groceries and library and it's FREE to tie up here. Room for 6-7 boats. It's between Great Bridge Lock and Great Bridge bridge. Confused? You can look it up. Significant Revolutionary War battle fought here.

     Last Saturday we left Annapolis intending to get to Solomons, MD. A couple of hours bashing into major wind and waves made us change our destination to the Rhodes River. A real pretty and protected spot that local cruisers have their raft-ups at.

     When we left the next day it was still a little breezy but nowhere near as bad and we made good time to Solomans Island. Motoring some because of the wind direction but we also had some nice sailing time. Happy. We anchored in a spot we used in the springtime where there is room for 2 or 3 boats. Within a few hours we were surrounded by 9 or 10 boats. Way too many. Way too close. We even asked one for their insurance information because of where they anchored and the weather forecast. For some reason they moved off to a mooring. Might have been something I said. Besides us there was one US registered boat (that stayed), one Australian and the rest were Canadians. I might have posted something unflattering about Canadians on Facebook being a little frustrated with their anchoring choices. I know Canadians. Canadians are nice. I'm sure they contribute to our economy travelling to the US. But.... do they have to anchor SO DAMN CLOSE???

     Whoops. There I go again. Sorry. BTW: the boat I shamed into moving was from Massachusetts. Definitely not Canadians.

     We had a very nice sail to Deltaville, VA and anchored next to Canadians. We made sure not to be too close and that made them (and us) friendly.

     From Deltaville we planned to go to Hampton, VA but we've had the current with us for several morning departure passages and made good time to Hampton Roads where we decided to brave the Norfolk traffic and military restrictions to head into the ICW. Just barely made some last of the day bridge openings which caused some tension but... here we are! In the long ditch. Heading to Coinjock next to do laundry and then across Albermarle Sound in NC. We're actually waiting an extra day here (where it's free) to time crossing Albermarle Sound in safer conditions. Coinjock docking is definitely not free.

     Did I mention we like free? We spent multiple thousands of dollars in maintenance and repairs in the last few weeks. Some planned. Some not. Ahhh, cruising.



    

Wonderful Weather

          We're at a marina near Baltimore waiting to get hauled for annual maintenance. Carol is off on her first week of working. Someplace warmer than here.

          As mentioned in my previous post the weather has been unsettled. No major storms but rain, fog, showers nearly every day. Blah.

          We left Port Washington 24 September intending to go all the way to Cape May, NJ. Nope. After going under the Narrows-Veranzano Bridge we noticed we were sinking. Not good. We had a leak in a raw water cooling hose. The leak was after the pump so the cooling water was not going through the heat exchanger but into the bilge. In a sailboat raw (salt) water cools the anti-freeze which circulates through the engine. So we limped on one engine into Atlantic Highlands, Sandy Hook, NJ. Three dirty hours of belt changing and hose trimming got us ready to go again the next day.

          We headed out about noon on the 25th for a 19 hour overnight passage to Cape May, arriving in the morning of the 26th. It was a mostly calm, non-eventful passage except for fog near the end. That fog kept us in port until the 28th when we headed up Delaware Bay. We had some fog and some showers but mostly it was calm and we had the current the whole way. Only 8 hours in the Bay! That's unbelievably fast! The passage totalled 10 hours and at the end, in Chesapeake City we had dinner with Bob and Jane Fulton and three other couples we met there. Before meeting here Bob and Jane knew only us and us only them. Old friends, new friends, good food, a good time. That's cruising!

          Passages to Bodkin Creek went easy just a continuation of the unsettled weather. Hoping it's going to be good for working this coming week in Pasadena, MD.

Photo is from our passage through NYC where Heather took photos of us going by.