Portsmouth, Edenton and More

Portsmouth

Ok, Ok. I didn’t want to write about our Portsmouth (VA) mis-adventure, but Ann says I have to. If I don’t tell the story my way, I am afraid she will tell it her way. So, okay, I am going to tell it, but first, the back story.

After the Hampton Snowbird Rendezvous we decided to visit Portsmouth, VA. It is the first place along the Intracoastal (mile marker zero) that we had never visited, so we made a reservation at the Tidewater Marina and as soon as the Rendezvous was over, we headed for Portsmouth. The marina was nothing to write home about, but it was okay. Interestingly, though, my top-notch Wi-Fi antenna wouldn’t work. I could pick up Wi-Fi through my computer itself, but not through the antenna. After experimenting with various fixes, I called the company’s service department and asked what was up. The consumer rep (who is also the owner) said, “Are you by chance in Virginia?”

“Uh, yea,” I replied in my most technically sophisticated voice.

“ … At the Tidewater Marina?”

“Right again,” I answered.

Apparently, between the Navy’s facilities in Norfolk, Newport News and Portsmouth, there are a lot of electronic signals floating in the ether. It doesn’t seem to interfere with low powered Wi-Fi receivers, but it does with the hi-powered antennas that we have – I guess it has something to do with the gain on the antenna or something like that. Anyway, as soon as we left Portsmouth, the antenna started working as well as before.

While in Portsmouth we also visited “Old Town Portsmouth.” There are certainly a number of old houses, most from the late 19^th century. They would have been more interesting if it has been possible to go in and looked around, but since most are privately owned, that wasn’t possible. I gotta say that after seeing a dozen or so houses built in 1890, they begin to look a little bit alike, so after that first day we decided that there was probably more to see in Norfolk than Portsmouth – and we were right.  We spent the next day or two visiting Norfolk, which is right across the river. We saw the Battleship Wisconsin and parts of the Nauticus – a major maritime museum that Norfolk sponsors. There was more to see in Norfolk so we will probably go back.

After that we hunkered down for a day or two because it was c-c-c-cold AND the wind was blowing at maybe 20 – 25 MPH. It was so old, in fact, that (are ready for this?) I even put on jeans and socks!! Finally, though, on the fourth day, I decided it was time to go. In case you were wondering, THAT was a bad decision.

The Incident (To be sung to terrible, terrible dramatic music like “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows the sorrow …”)

On that terrible day it was cold though a little less windy than it had been. We were in the slip, bow-in. All we needed to do was back out of the slip and pivot the boat by running one engine (starboard) forward and one (port) in reverse, which would, in turn, swing the bow to the left and the stern to the right. If everything had worked correctly, we would then have been facing down the fairway and ready to leave the marina. Moreover, since I know that our boat has a lot of windage aft, I was counting on the wind pushing our stern even more to the right. In other words, I thought the wind would help us turn.

Well, things didn’t happen the way they were supposed to.  For some reason – and I still don’t know why – I could not get the bow wouldn’t turn to port. We basically were sitting between the two rows of boats at about a 30 degree angle with the wind was pushing us down the fairway, away from the direction we wanted to go. We would come close to the boats in front and I would rev the engines in reverse, then we would come close to boats in the rear and I would rev the engines forward. This continued for an eternity or two until the ladder connecting our aft deck and swim platform got caught in another boat’s anchor. At that point all movement ceased (thank God!). While Ann and another gentleman worked to free the ladder from the anchor, I tried to get control of the boat. We both succeeded. I was then able to turn the boat around and leave the marina.

Ann thought that we might have bent one of the flukes on the anchor we snagged, so we called and offered to recompense the boat owner. As for Traveling Soul, we lost the top step of the ladder on the aft deck, which I think will be about a $30 repair. Overall, it was a fairly inexpensive finish to what could have been a much more catastrophic operation. At any rate, this was not an auspicious beginning to 2014’s journey down the ICW.

Edenton

Shhhh! We have discovered one of the best kept secrets in North Carolina – Edenton, North Carolina, a town on the northern bank of the Albemarle Sound. For cruisers, it has everything, several restaurants, a nice hardware store, a great deal of history, ice cream places and (are you ready for this?) a FREE DOCK! That’s right. Downtown Edenton has a marina with about eleven slips that are absolutely free for up to two full days. Moreover, they have one slip that is big enough to handle Traveling Soul.



The Chowan Country Courthouse (ca. 1767) in Edenton.
The oldest government building in continuous use in NC

Edenton has quite a history. In 1658 adventurers from the Jamestown area, drifted south from Virginia, eventually settling on a natural harbor on the northern bank of the Albemarle Sound and founding the first permanent settlement in what is now the state of North Carolina. Officially recognized as a town – and as the first capital of North Carolina – in 1712, its first name was the Towne on Queen Anne's Creek. It later became Ye Towne on Mattercommack. In 1722 the location was incorporated and renamed “Edenton” in honor of Governor Charles Eden. Edenton’s claim to fame (other than having several native sons as signers of the Declaration of Independence) was when, in 1774, fifty-one Edenton women, led by one Penelope Barker, signed a petition agreeing to boycott English tea and other products, in what became known, decades later, as the “Edenton Tea Party.” According to Wikipedia, “The Edenton Tea Party is the first known political action by women in the British American colonies. In fact it so shocked London that newspapers published an etching depicting the woman as uncontrollable.”
 Downtown Edenton has a bunch of 17^th and 18^th Century homes, many of which have a story associated with them. We took a trolley tour where Ann swears it took the li’l ol’ lady wiiittthhh a reeaaalll south’n drraawwlll a full minute or more to get each word out. On the tour they told us all we ever wanted to know – and a whole lot we didn’t – about the houses in Edenton. Although we complain a little, it is wonderful to see a small town on the water succeeding where so many others have failed. Today Edenton is a thriving town of about 5,000 people in a county with a population of 15,000.

One of the many historic homes in Edenton

Ok, Ann says I gotta tell you my bike riding story, too. North Carolina publishes as handout entitled, “Biking the Albemarle,” which sounds like something I would love. It has various routes around the northern Albemarle and distances associated with each. One route was labeled a 22 mile ride in and around Edenton. Sounds good, right? Well, apparently the states and the locals do not coordinate the names of the roads and streets around the county. I swear to you (with Ann as my witness) I was supposed to get onto Yeopim Street, go a couple of miles then turn onto Indian Trails Road. Well the town did not have a Yeopim Street, but as I traced the highway connections, it appeared as if Church Street was the local name for Yeopim. So, I took off down Church Street. I zigged and I zagged, I looked for the other roads I was supposed to find. I zigged some more and I zagged some more, and after about 15 miles I took a road saying Edenton was 2 miles away. Then, about three miles down the road, I took another road saying Edenton was two miles away. Then another. Finally, I found a street named Yeopim that was probably 10 miles away from where the state map proclaimed it to be. Just so you know, I had left Edenton long ago. I was in the North Carolina countryside riding alongside cotton fields. I finally did make it back, but it had nothing to do with that darn map. In short, my 22 mile ride turned into a 30.33 mile ride, part of which was on Highway 17 – a major highway that I generally like to avoid.

Even after all that, I still like Edenton.

Alligator River, Morehead City and More

Sunset at our anchorage in the Alligator River, North Carolina

After we left Edenton, we anchored out one night just south of Albemarle Sound in the Alligator River. The following night we anchored just off the Pungo River inside the seawall that surrounds Belhaven, NC. I really didn’t want to take my bike ashore in the dinghy so I decided to take the dinghy ashore and jog a little. Well, I learned something. Being able to bike a few miles does NOT translate into the ability to jog a few miles – at least when you are sixty-something years old. I did it, I jogged a couple of miles, stopping more times than I care to admit, but I am no longer a jogger. I am a bicyclist.

After Belhaven we traveled to Morehead City, NC where we had hoped to meet friends of ours, Shay and Elizabeth Glass on their boat Escape. Unfortunately we forgot to tell Shay and Elizabeth that we were coming. They had already left Morehead City and were on their way to Florida. So instead of visiting with them, we stayed one night at Morehead City (where I got in one short bike ride), refueled and headed further south.

When we set out the morning of October 30^th, we heard that some bad weather was coming, so our plan was to anchor for one night at Mile Hammock Bay, then get to Southport, NC before the front arrived. Before we got anywhere, though, we had to pass under the Onslow Beach Bridge. It really shouldn’t have been a problem. The bridge opened on the hour and half-hour and we were there at 25 past the hour. Of all the days, of all the times, of all the organizations, someone decided that the bridge should be inspected by some contracted Navy Engineers. Most of you know that I really don’t have time for Navy anything, but Navy Engineers? Who even knew the Navy had engineers (other than Seabees)? If the Navy has engineers, why is it that the Army Corps of Engineers runs the ICW, the major ports, etc. Now that I know the Navy has engineers, I gotta ask who would give them anything important to do?  But Noo-oo! At the Onslow Beach Bridge, some genius of a navy “engineer” decided to inspect the bridge when no fewer than a dozen boats were waiting for it to open so we could all pass under. AARRGGHH!!!

But that wasn’t all. The anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay, where we had planned on spending the night, is part of the Marine Corps Base at Camp Lejeune and is really a wonderful anchorage. In fact, we have stayed there every time we have traversed the ICW – sometimes in pretty bad weather and fairly high winds. Well, we had heard that this year there were some military training exercises taking place and that this particular stretch of the ICW might be problematic. We watched all the notices that the Marines are required to publish and picked dates when we shouldn’t have had any problems.  Just to make sure, though, we called range control who told us that “yes’” the ICW was open but Mile Hammock Bay itself was closed to anchoring.  Now this was a problem.

There are really no good anchorages that we know about within fifteen or twenty miles of Mile Hammock. Neither were there many marinas within a reasonable distance. Making matters worse is the fact that we weren’t the only ones who were surprised by the closing of Mile Hammock, there were several other boats looking for a place to stay. What to do, what to do. We got out our cruising books and found a small marina that was designed to serve a specific community, but that would be happy to provide space for transients – for a price. Ok, so the price wasn’t exorbitant, it was still higher than we wanted to pay and certainly higher than we had planned on paying! We stayed the night and were up and gone early the next morning.

The only good thing about the closing of Mile Hammock was that it put us closer to our intermediate destination in Southport. The front that was on the way was forecast to be a strong one with very cold weather – possibly even with that four letter word that begins with “s” – and gale force winds. They were even telling people to get their porch and patio furniture inside so it didn’t blow away. We decided we’d hunker down in a marina that we know and at which we have spent some time before, St. James Plantation Marina just outside of Southport.

In the event, it was certainly cold and windy, but we did not see any gale force winds, any furniture flying off porches or patios, nor did we see any frozen precipitation. In short, it was pretty much a non-event. Meanwhile, I took advantage of the opportunity to ride a couple of times. St. James Plantation is a very large, very nice housing development built around a couple of golf courses and a marina. It is also just a bridge away from the North Carolina beaches. AND it has some very nice biking paths and since most of them are kind of “loops” that stay within the development you CANNOT GET LOST!

We still have to cover a couple of more places before we are completely caught up, but we know you have other things to do than read our blog.  We thought it we kept it a little shorter, you might actually get to read most of it.

The first (of what I am sure will be many) of
this year's dolphin pictures

ANN’S NOTES: I will have to admit this trip down the ICW has been on the chilly side. Most of the time that would not be a problem for me, as I like cold weather. The down side of living on a boat and in charge of most things outside in or around the deck is the wind. Wind, cold air and water do not mix well first thing in the morning when I have to bring up Big Bertha (the anchor) and give her a shower. I am getting rather good, and fast, at bringing up the anchor.

When we are doing these chores we need to stay in contact with each other. Michael is at the helm with a large window between him and me when I am at the bow of the boat. In the past, we have used headsets to talk to each other. They worked well, but they didn’t last long because they were on the cheap side. We had already gone through sets of the less expensive ones. The solution was to do some research talk to few other cruisers and ask what kind of headsets they use . Now we have a new pair of headset that are much lighter, have a longer battery life, and makes me look like a rock star at the bow of the boat. That all works for me. Rock on Traveling Soul… a good title for a song I think.

I won’t say anything more about getting out of the slip in Portsmouth..I was on the aft deck. I call it the back porch…Michael just shakes his head when I call it that. I think Michael did a great job trying to get out of that slip. I just made the best decisions I could in a bad situation and kept our boat from doing any more damage to other boats.

Our visit to Edenton was interesting. The town has that Mayberry-feel. I was waiting to see Opie and Aunt Bee with Sheriff Andy walking down the street. The town has lots of old live oak trees, Spanish moss and slave stories. I would go back just to see a few more places we missed this time around. And that tour guide really did talk southern...aaaaaaaaaaaaannnnd tttttttttttttooooooooooo y’alls leeeeft …(hand pointing left)…you get the picture…correct???

So now Ladies and Gentlemen…it is time for the Wildlife count.

Now that we are back on the ICW all my dolphin friends are back and playing with us and wanting to be counted…so here we go…

Thursday 30 October 2014

·         1 single dolphin
·         1 pod of 3 dolphins
·         1 pod of 4 dolphins playing in our wake
·         2 pods of 5 dolphins playing in our wake

Friday 31 October 2014

·         1 single very playful dolphin in our bow wake
·         2 pods of 2 dolphins
·         Thanks for reading
·         Traveling Soul

Traveling Soul … OUT

2014: The Journey Begins

On October 6, 2014, we set off down the Chesapeake to see, explore, discover … and get out of the damn cold that seemed to have come a little early this year! We had intended to spend the month of October touring some of the nooks and crannies of North Carolina, but we got an invitation to attend a Rendezvous, the Hampton Snowbird Rendezvous, to be exact. A rendezvous is kind of like a cruiser’s conference that has interesting presentations, time to meet and greet people, and great food (at least this one did). I will discuss it more below, but once we decided to go to the rendezvous we figured we would have to forego our explorations of North Carolina and spend some our time meandering down the Chesapeake towards Hampton, VA.

Our first stop after leaving Kent Island was St. Michael’s, MD. We had been here many times before and, in fact, had anchored in almost exactly the same spot before.  Now, imagine sitting on the aft deck with a cocktail just enjoying the hell out of the wonderful weather and calm seas. What could be better than this? I’ll tell you what … sitting on the aft deck with a cocktail and a baited hook in the water just waiting for a decent-sized spot or even a croaker. Now THAT is heaven.

The day after I enjoyed a little o this heavenly bliss, we decided we would go into St. Michaels to see what was new. We deployed the dinghy, pulled the cord to start the outboard and … nothing. Nothing. The $%#% thing wouldn’t start. As high as I had been the day before while fishing off the aft deck, I was now just as low sitting in the non-functional dinghy. I know what was wrong, of course. The brilliant legislators who mandated the use of ethanol in our gasoline either did not know – or did not care – that it would have a tremendously negative impact on marine outboards. AAARGH!!!

 Since we couldn’t get to shore, we called around and found a marina/boatyard in Oxford, MD that could take us and repair our dinghy expeditiously. Campbell’s was not only fast (they had us ready to go by 3:30 that afternoon), they were also relatively inexpensive. (We paid for one hour of a mechanics time, $85.) We went ahead and spent the night at the marina, then anchored the following night at our favorite anchoring spot in Oxford, Flatty Cove. Since we were there, we deployed our dinghy (this time it worked!) and went into town. Some of you may remember that Ann and I have a love affair with the Robert Morris Inn as it has some of the best food – and perhaps the best crab cakes – on the Bay. Well, this time we didn’t go for dinner, but we did go for lunch. Ann had a Reuben AND she actually ate cold slaw with APPLES in it. (Some of you will understand the significance of Ann eating a salad with fruit in it. If not, take my word for it; this is an event!) As for me, I have my specialty: beer and French fries with rosemary and parmesan. MMMMMMMM!!

We had decided to go to some new places on the Chesapeake this year, so after Oxford we headed for Crisfield Maryland. Crisfield is on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. According to Wikipedia:

The site of today's Crisfield was initially a small fishing village called Annemessex Neck. During European colonization, it was renamed Somer's Cove after Benjamin Summers. When the business potential for seafood was discovered, John W. Crisfield decided to bring the Pennsylvania Railroad to Crisfield, and the quiet fishing town grew. Crisfield is now known as the "Seafood Capital of the World.” The city's success was so great that the train soot and oyster shells prompted the extension of the city's land into the marshes. City residents often claim that the downtown area is literally built atop oyster shells.

But the key to Wikipedia’s discussion is in subsequent paragraphs.

·         “Crisfield began to slip into decline along with the declining health of the Chesapeake Bay …”

·       By 1904, Crisfield was the second largest city in Maryland, after Baltimore, with the population topping off at about 25,000 at that time. In 2010, the population was a little over 2,000.

Whether you are an environmentalist, a seafood lover or simply a lover of the Eastern Shore and what it represents, it is sad to realize that Crisfield (and many other cities in both Maryland and Virginia) destroyed themselves by overfishing. First, they overfished oysters and now they are destroying the crab fishery. The numbers of the blue crab catch has decreased by 70% since the 1990s. Downtown Crisfield is now a shadow of its former self. I have seen a repurposing of buildings before, but when a large community bank building (you know, one of those that looks like it is made of granite?) has been made into a curtain shop and when hardware stores have been converted to churches, you know that things are not going well for the town.

Okay, so you get the idea that Crisfield is not what it once was. We, moreover, got there on a cold, wet, windy day. So, while there wouldn’t have been much to do anyway, the weather put a real damper on things. Not to despair, however, because the next day the marina sponsored what they called an “Outdoor Expo” for the community; Ann preferred to call it an “All Things Duck” day. Yes, they had duck decoys for sale, duck calls, duck hats, duck this and duck that. They even had – wait for it – one of the personalities from the TV show “Duck Dynasty!!!” We are so very, very sorry though, we did not get his autograph.

We did partake, and enjoy, two parts of the “All Things Duck” Fest. They had a demonstration of dogs retrieving the duck that their masters shot. Imagine this: the dog and his hunter on the platform, the officials would make a sound like a shotgun firing and then send one or two targets in to the water. On command, the dog would take a flying leap into the water towards the targets, swim out, pick  up the decoy  and bring them back to the hunter. The water was c-c-c-cold and those dogs were amazingly well trained.  The second part of the event that we especially enjoyed was lunch. We had a meal consisting of crawdads, gator and frog’s legs. Man those frog legs were good! I have had better gator as this was a little tough (look at me – a gator connoisseur) and the crawdads, well, they were really small. We only had one where you could get a mouthful of meat and it was good. But fighting the shell for that little bite made the ‘dad my least favorite. The organizers also had a “muskrat platter,” but we decided to forego that one.

We also met some new cruisers at Crisfield. Waterford and My Dreams are two Kady Krogens (a very nice kind  of trawler) that had just been to the Krogen rendezvous at Solomons, MD. We asked them over for drinks and made some new friends. That and a couple of 15 mile bike rides kind if rounded out our Crisfield adventure.

Our initial plan was to go from Crisfield to Onancock (pronounced O- NAN- cock), anchor out and check out the little town and its environs. We heard, however, that the weather, which had improved a little since we had arrived in Crisfield, was going to deteriorate again, so we decided to head across the bay to Deltaville for a few days to get set for our trip to Hampton. We have been in Deltaville a lot so we knew to use the marina’s courtesy car to go to the grocery, the fresh fish store, the cute little sandwich shop and to West Marine. I got in one bike ride, then  the weather, as predicted, got yucky. As a result, Ann organized a pizza party on the marina’s front porch. We invited all the cruisers who were there, which included the crew of the two Krogens we had met in Crisfield AND a boat that we originally met two years ago in March Harbor in the Bahamas and have subsequently run into (figuratively, not literally) at Kilkenny Marina in Georgia and at Ashley Marina in Charleston. The name of the boat: Azure Skies. The captain and sole crew member’s name: Bob (sorry, I don’t know Captain Bob’s last name).

Then we took off for Hampton for the great Hampton Snowbird Rendezvous. It turned out that we had done the right thing by crossing from Crisfield when we had the weather window. We ended up going south from Deltaville to Hampton while some friends of ours got caught crossing the Chesapeake, going kind of east to west, during quite a little bit of rough weather.  I think we have determined there are three reasons to attend a rendezvous:

·         Meet new people and renew old acquaintances

·         Explore a new location (Hampton)

·         Go to classes and attend seminars

We met several new people in Hampton. Just as importantly, we saw our good friends Tom and Christina from their boat Tadhana. Tom has been involved in the marine industry for years  , he has a degree from Brown, has designed boats, managed boatyards, and edited the Waterway Guide. While Tom and Christina have cruised  the Chesapeake extensively, they have not spent much time on the ICW. THAT is one thing about which we actually know a little more than they do! We also met Mark and Dianne Doyle, authors of a different waterway guide – one that Ann likes a lot. Although Mark is very knowledgeable about some things, we know more than he does about some things, too (though he would never admit it – yes, he is one of those kinds of guys.)

Oh! And before I forget, Ann’s cousins Sally Koch, Ralph Butler (and his wife, Mary) and Sandy Fisher came to visit. Ralph has a summer house in Machipongo, VA (on Virginia’s eastern shore) where the cousins congregated. It turns out Ralph is a dedicated fisherman! We may have to go see him next year on our way up the Chesapeake J

We really didn’t take as much advantage of Hampton as we probably should have. I was a bit too intimidated by the traffic and weird road system to go bicycling, and everything we needed (like restaurants) were close by. The Event offered a few trips to various attractions, we passed on most of them.

We went several different lectures. Some were good and some were … okay.

·         ICW 202: Beyond the Basics (I could have missed it.)
·         Medicine Aboard (I did miss it, but Ann says it was really good.)
·         Perfect Placed to Plunk It: 50 Frugal Favorites (Yawn)
·         Five Things to Know About  How Boats Are Built (Actually, much better than I thought it was going to be!)
·         Caring For your Canvas (Pretty good, though I missed some of it)
·         ICW Trouble Spots (I took notes, but I am not sure I agree with everything the speaker said.)
·         What Really Sinks your Boat (Really very good – and scary)
·         The Bahamas- Cuba Loop (Hello, Cuba is still off limits to Americans)
·         Smartphones and Tablets Aboard (Pretty good, but some people have made an avocation of using the phone and tablet on board.)

ANN’S Notes: Well….since Michael has pretty much  explain what we have been doing and did a mighty fine job…I don’t have much to add.

Since the general election was just a few days ago, the one statement the candidates make at the end of the add..I will modify for my use.

This blog has been approved and edited by Ann R. Brown

Fist mate on the motor vessel Traveling Soul

Traveling Soul…Out

 

August 7 - October 6: Or What we did this Summer

I thought and thought and thought about how I was going to write this Blog Entry. On the one hand we had done some cool stuff over the summer that we thought was truly Blog-worthy. On the other hand, we spent a lot of time at one marina, Herrington North, and didn’t do much cruising. On the third hand we had a great time visiting our mothers in the Great American West (Tucson, AZ and Portland, OR), and on the fourth hand not a lot of our boating friends care that much about the desert and rain those two cities signify. So, I am going to write a couple of short, quick paragraphs each on our time at Herrington, our trip to Baltimore, our journey out west, and on the repairs and improvements we made at Annapolis and Kent Island.

Herrington Harbor North

We spent nearly two months at HHN. While there, since I had a new and functioning Achilles Tendon for the first time in several years I just had to try it out, so I bought a new bicycle and started cycling again. Eventually I was covering between fifteen and twenty miles every morning alternating between some very hilly routes and some relatively flat ones. On my rides I found a lot of cool old cemeteries, some out-of-the-way old farms, an occasional piece of clothing (you might be surprised what you find along the roadway!) but mostly I found post offices.

Do you remember a few years ago when the Postmaster General urged Congress to let him have the authority to close some rural post offices? If I thought about it at all, I guess I thought that the Postmaster ought to be able to close post offices, but I really didn’t have a dog in that particular fight. Well, on my various bicycle routes around Deale, I counted seven – count ‘em – seven post offices all within a 7.5 mile radius. (They are: Deale, Tracy’s Landing, Friendship, Galesville, Shady Side, Churchton, and West River. I think there may be one or two more within the same radius, but those weren’t on my routes.) Now these aren’t itty bitty postal counters within another store, they are bona fide brick structures – most of them stand-alone buildings – the smallest of which was (I am guessing here) about 800-1000 square feet. There are more post offices in the area than there are grocery stores, police stations, or fast-food restaurants.  In case you hadn’t guessed, I now claim to have a dog in the Postmaster General’s fight. Someone has to close down some of those post offices!

Ann hard at work on using her new dremel
to take apart the old light fixtures.

The other thing we worked on while at HHN was our AC lighting system. I think I mentioned some time ago how hard it was to change the round, phosphorescent bulbs in our lighting fixtures. Well, we replaced all of them with LED fixtures. It took about ten trips to Home (the closest was about 45 minutes away) and a LOT of exchanges, but eventually we got the right stuff and figured out how to make the system work. Since the lights are guaranteed for about 50,000 hours, Hurray! No More Bulb Changes!!! We ended up taking apart the phosphorescent fixtures and using the board on which they had been built as the base for the LED lights. To take apart the old lights, Ann became a true expert with a dremel while I was responsible for wiring the new ones.

Baltimore

In August we took a cruise to Baltimore with our friends Dave and Joan Wolf. Again, the weather for the trip was beautiful and the seas cooperative.

We had been to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor before and really like it. (If you are a cruiser and haven’t been there, you should go. Yes, it is a bit touristy, but while you are in someplace for a short period of time to see the sights, you are, in fact, a tourist.) Anyway, this time, we took a hike to Edgar Allen Poe’s gravesite. Poe, of course, had an interesting life, but his remains also have quite a history. Buried the first time in the back of Westminster Cemetery, where his grave was not well kept, his body was moved to the front of the graveyard where his grave was more accessible to the public. Moreover, at some point the remains of mother and wife were moved to the same location. Most people know the story of the Poe Toaster (who left a partial bottle of cognac and three roses at Poe’s grave site on the anniversary of his death from 1949 – 2009), but fewer know that even today people leave small gifts at the site – as can be seen in the picture.

A better picture of Poe's memorial.

Some of the "stuff" people have left at Poe's grave.

No trip to Baltimore would be complete, of course, without a visit to one of Little Italy’s best restaurants. The name of the place was Aldo’s and it was, as we say in Italy, “delizioso!!” I also got Ann to make one of my favorite meals, “pecan chicken.”  It is the second time she has made it and it was as scrumptious as the first.

Because of all the eating, I had to get some exercise. Well, let me tell you that Baltimore is not made for bicyclers. In the first place, the part of town called the “Inner Harbor” is a relatively narrow strip of land around the mouth of the Patapsco River. Once you get outside that strip of land, you learn that Baltimore is definitely an industrial town – and not that wealthy of an industrial town. Moreover, you learn that Baltimore’s politicians must do something other than fill potholes to get into office. The streets are horrible! I was afraid that if I fell into one of those holes, no one would ever see me again.

Our Trip West

Ann and I also took trips out West. We both flew to Tucson, AZ to see my mom, then Ann flew on to Portland, OR to see her sister and mother while I stayed a few extra days with my mom. I suspect Ann will write about her trip below, but while in Tucson we went to Karshner Caverns,they are relatively newly discovered cave just south of Tucson. The caverns were discovered in 1974 and the discoverers, the land owners and the state of Arizona worked hard to keep the caverns growing. Humans, just by breathing and carrying bacteria into a cave can virtually destroy it – as is the case at Carlsbad, Luray and other well-known cave systems.

During her trip to Oregon, Ann and her sister, Liz  took a little journey to Bend Oregon to see a cousin that Ann hasn’t seen for … er … several years – actually, several decades. Ann not only enjoyed seeing her cousin (and made plans to link up with her later this fall in Virginia, but also seems to have fallen in love with Bend. The only trouble is, it is not on the water and Traveling Soul couldn’t make it to Bend if she wanted to!

Boat Repairs and Improvements

We had two sets of repairs/improvements done to the boat. The first set was at Kent Island where our friend/broker and all-around boat guys Rick and Tyler worked off the list that the Deltaville Boatyard was supposed to have done. In addition to fixing a bunch of small items and finding several leaks (that allowed rain, not sea water into the boat), Tyler did an excellent job of fabricating a cabinet door and making a new hatch for the flybridge.

Without going into detail, Tyler and crew did the following:

·         Repair hatch to flybridge.

·         Repair Middle Head.

·         Repair/replace port#1 electrical outlet and fuse.

·         Take out icemaker and create storage space in salon

·         Identify and repair leak in forward shower (pantry).

·         Draw a high level electrical system diagram.

·         Repair door to fresh water wash down on aft deck.

·         Replace forward bilge pump switch at the helm station.

·         Replace handle on seacock for port engine.

·         Repair scratch on the starboard side of the transom. This resulted from a slight accident.

·         Repair crack on swim platform

·         Identify and repair water (rain) eak in salon

 

The new top to our bar and entertainment center.

We had another set of improvements done to the boat in Annapolis. We contracted Yacht Interiors of Annapolis to replace our carpeting and replace the laminate on the top of the bar. Well, I gotta tell you that while they were pricey, they did an excellent job. As long as we don’t have to replace anything they did for the next twenty years, it will have been worth the money.

ANN’S NOTES:  As always Michael has a knack for putting everything in a nut shell. The summer at Herrington Harbour was good. We had all the normal doctor and dental appointments, got our Rx renewed and got a clean bill of health from the various doctors.

I want to take this time to say Thank You to our son Tim and his wife Carrie for taking such good care of our little car and making sure it is up and running when we need it in the summer. Then, there is Dave and Joan Wolf that run the best car transfer operation in VA. They have moved and pre-positioned our car so many times I have lost track. Plus, both families have open up their homes when ever we needed them  and made us feel welcome and special. Both Michael and I know we could not do this cruising without your help…and we love you all so very much.

Our trip to visit our moms was wonderful. It is always nice to see "the moms".  Also reconnecting with long lost family was a bonus. And …yes…I loved Bend OR. It is such a beautiful setting, mountains, river that runs through town, farmers markets, the list can go on and on.

If any of you follow me on Facebook, you already know that I got stuck in the San Francisco airport,  I spent a week there one day. The story still makes me shake my head and ask WHY??? But it is passed and I learned a valuable lesson. Example… do not go to the bathroom between flights.



A picture of our robotic vacuum cleaner, Rosie.
At her "home station."

The work we had done on the boat is wonderful. The new carpeting is plush, cushy and clean. Since we have new carpeting and it needs to be cleaned and my birthday was around the same  time…that made it a perfect time for a new toy. Her name is Rosie the robotic vacuum cleaner and she is from the family of Rumba. Yup...I now have a small round vacuum cleaner that can find its way home and recharge. I think Michael really likes to watch her clean and he has small conversations with her. I like that I can just put her in the room and she just vacuums away and does not fall down the stairs. Rosie is named after the Jetson’s robot and I like her.

As far as the wild life count…while we were at Mears Marina on Kent Island, I saw a red fox that lived near the water front in  a condo community. In the morning I would hear the ducks and a few other water birds make a racket. The fox would walk across the small rock pile that extended into the water, he was trying to catch the ducks I am sure. He must have had a den in the tall sea grass on shore.

I did touch base with many of my   friends and shared some yummy meals with them. I like going home to my old stomping grounds but I call Traveling Soul home.

FYI…on 2 November, it will be our third year living on board!!! Raise a glass and think of us !!!

Traveling Soul…OUT

June and July Catchup (Herrington Harbor North)

I know some of you are probably wondering why we didn’t publish a blog entry in June – or July for that matter. Well the simple answer is that we didn’t do much of anything interesting and go much of anyplace worthwhile. The more complex answer is that both the boat and I were in our respective hospitals for maintenance and repairs. I was, once again, much more impressed with the people hospital than the boat hospital. In fact, this is the second boatyard that has lost our business forever and ever and ever. Before I discuss work on the boat, let me say just a little about my own “repair and maintenance” experience.

I have now had FOUR – count ‘em FOUR – operations on my Achilles tendon. As a reminder, the first was for severe tendonitis, the second was to repair a rupture that occurred as a result of the first, the third was to cut out an infection – and repair damage to the tendon – that occurred as a result of the second, and the fourth was to dig out the a piece of infected suture that was left over from the third. Yeah … that’s what I say. A-N-Y-W-A-Y, my foot now feels better than it has in ages. I can do “toe raises” on my right foot alone – without pain – for the first time since the process began. In short, I firmly believe that the evil pseudomonas bacteria has been banned from my body and my Achilles tendon is well-recovered.

At the same time I was in the hospital, we had the boat out of the water in the Deltaville Boatyard. We gave them a list of projects that needed to be done. While I wasn’t sure they would get to all of them, I thought they would work though the higher priority projects – boy was I mistaken. I have listed all the projects and the action (or lack of action) at the end of the blog (for those who just HAVE to know the details). For the rest of you, let me summarize.



I call this, Portrait of a Butterfly.
 (You have to think about nice things when dealing with
boatyards -- otherwise you'll go bonkers!)

We asked them to do as many of the 20 projects as they could in the time they had. In the event, they accomplished only FIVE of them with varying degrees of professionalism, but with an UNVARYING desire for our money. One of the five projects they completed was the repair of two of our air conditioners that weren’t working. I told them that if they needed to, they should replace one or both. They reported to me that neither needed replacement, just sealing some leaks in the system. Great! I thought. And while I thought $2200 was a bit much for filling some leaks, it was certainly cheaper than replacing them. As it turned out, of course, one of the air conditioners failed – barely two weeks out of the boatyard – and needed to be replaced anyway, to the tune of $3500. In essence I wasted a grand at the boatyard.



I also asked them to wash and wax the boat. They washed and waxed the hull for $2000. Last year at Herrington North, I had the ENTIRE boat washed and waxed (while in the water) for around $1300. I’m just sayin’ …

As I said we didn’t do much during the months of June and July, we did take a couple of cruises. We brought the boat from Deltaville to Herrington North, our favorite marina in the northern Bay. The cruise up was great; the weather was wonderful and the seas were perfect. We spent the night anchored in Smith Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River. We have stayed there before and it is every bit as lovely as we remembered. Although there are some buildings in view, Smith Creek is mostly surrounded by nature in all of its glory. One of the exceptions is a farm house on the south side of the creek that plays the national anthem and raises the flag every morning at 0800. We also discovered that there is a restaurant near the entrance to the creek. Now from the way it looks from the outside, it surely isn’t one of those kitschy restaurants to which the nouveau riche flock on the weekend. It is either one of those place that primarily serves locals with wonderful food, or you have to pull the flies out of your mashed potatoes. We’ll never know until we go there!



Lightning at Herrington Harbor

 While at Herrington North, we took a weekend cruise to Solomons Island, Maryland, a kind of touristy place that we like to visit. Our friend Joan Wolf was on the boat and we were going to meet Dave at Zahniser’s Marina. As we approached the Naval Air Station at Pawtuxet River we saw a number of things flying around, i.e. a couple of different kinds of helicopters, a Boeing 707, some F14’s AND a bald eagle! Yes, a bald eagle! We were cruising down the river and noticed a dead fish in the water about 100 feet ahead of us. Just then, a fairly large bald eagle swooped down to pick it up. It seemed, however, that about the same time I saw the fish he saw Traveling Soul and made a quick calculation as to whether he could get the fish and get away before colliding with us or not. He apparently decided that discretion was the better part of valor and continued his swoop away from the boat. At the closest, though, I would guess he was somewhere around 50 feet away. They are magnificent birds.

Since it was Joan’s birthday, we had dinner at the Drydock Restaurant. Unlike most Bay eating establishments where you pay exorbitant process to get good food, good service OR great views (pick two out of three), at the Drydock you get all three. Seriously, it is one of the nicest restaurants on the Bay. In addition, my wife, the magnificent cook, has expanded her repertoire – she has now made some homemade tonic, as in tonic for drinks. So, on our boat if you ask for Vodka and Tonic, you don’t get some regular old-fashioned, store-bought tonic water, you get Ann’s special, home-made tonic. No, we aren’t going to tell you how to make it, you have to come and visit to find out. (We’ll even provide the vodka!)

Door Before

We still have one more set of repairs for the boat – those that the boatyard did not do. Those will be made by our friend and (seemingly) only trustworthy repair-person we know, Rick Nissan (and his son Tyler). We are also going to bite the bullet and pay an exorbitant amount for some internal decorating. We will publish more details – and even some pictures – when they take place. However, in preparation for the changes we decided we HAD to re-varnish the doors. As most of you know, that doesn’t mean just re-varnishing, it means stripping and re-varnishing. We decided to make it a two day affair. I am going to hold the blog for a day so we can get some pictures of the new doors in.

Door Aftet

Ann’s Notes: As Michael has told you the summer months have been rather slow…as far as cruising goes. That does not mean we have not been busy. I like coming back home to catch up on my friendships and seeing my family. I have also been kept busy practicing my nursing skills, thankfully I won’t need to use them on Michael any more. It has been a long two and a half years dealing with the Achilles surgeries and the healing. I can now talk about that ordeal in the past tense … Michael is well and healed (a small pun was intended) Michael even bought a new bike and has been very loyal to it in the daily rides…except on weekends. I know I should get off my butt and do more … I have my yoga and walking. And now I have a new and unwelcomed pain in my neck. I will not go into details but I will just say that getting old is not for sissies.

We have done a few DIY projects…the port and starboard doors look really good. Picking out the color of stain was a two day talk fest…no matter how hard you try matching the color of teak on a twenty plus year old boat is not easy. We also took all the varnish off the swim platform steps and swim ladder.  After five coats of teak oil, they also look new. I have also replaced a port screen…I will not name, names…but one little girl we know sleeps on the top berth when she is on board and likes to open and close the port window.

I have been trying new recipes, one a week at least. I found myself cooking the same meals over and over again. I wanted to add some fun and spice (so to speak) in my cooking. Since we are dock side and have a car to get to the grocery store, I have had the time and the means to try something new. I have made some rather good meals, most are low cal but Michaels favorite, pecan chicken, is as far from low cal as a recipe can get – butter, heavy cream … but YUMMY!!!

Not much to report on the wild life…seeing the eagle so close was amazing. Some of the Osprey nests are empty…the teenage birds have learned to fly and are on their own and heading south. The big migration of Monarch butterflies is well under way. One thing I noticed and am happy about…NO JELLYFISH in the Bay this year. Some say the winter was too cold and that somehow prevented the jellyfish from mating??? Hey…I am an just an observer, not a biology expert.

Thanks for reading…stay tuned for more adventures. We promise to be more productive in the future!

Traveling Soul…OUT

 

Annex 1: The Repair List

As I said, we asked the Deltaville Boatyard to repair the following items. They accomplished only the first five.

·         I have already discussed the air conditioners.

·         And the Cleaning and waxing

·         Repair/replace seacocks. This is the major job that needed to be done this season and the reason the boat had to be taken out of the water. For those of you who don’t know boat engines are cooled by massive amounts of salt water circulating through them. For each engine, the water is pulled through a hole in the hull of the boat (called a thru-hull). The hole is covered with a seacock. The seacock is like a valve that can be shut off if there is a malfunction and water starts pouring into the boat through the aforementioned thru-hull.  On our boat, the seacocks were stuck in the open position, so if something catastrophic happened we would not be able to close the seacock. As you can imagine, this could be a very bad thing so we wanted to have them repaired. It was probably around a week-long job. It looks like they did a very good job on these.

·         Repair fresh water leak. I could have done this if I could get back where the leak is. The problem is that it is waaayyy back there. I needed someone who is more nimble than I. So far, so good.

·         Check all batteries and replace as necessary. One day tops. They did this on the last day we were at the boatyard.

·         Repair the Bowsprit. I had a small run-in with a piling in Vero Beach just before we left for the Bahamas. We need to have the gelcoat repaired and made to look whole. It might have taken one to one-and-a-half days. Another great job.

 

The rest of these items, they didn’t even attempt.

 

·         Repair hatch to flybridge. This hatch that leads from the salon to the flybridge has been repaired so many times (by both the previous owner and us) that it is just about unfixable. We need someone with a good imagination and some woodworking skills to figure out how to repair it this time. Moreover, we want it repaired so that we don’t have to do it again in another couple of months. One day, maybe two tops to get it put together again.

·         Draw electrical system diagram. I really don’t know how the entire DC system works. I know where the battery chargers are, for example, but I do not know which charger charges what bank of batteries. I know that the panel in the engine room implies that the alternators charge specific sets of batteries, but I don’t think they do. I just want a high-level diagram of the electrical system. One day tops.

·         Repair scratch on the starboard side of the transom. This resulted from a slight accident. It really shouldn’t take more than a half-day.

·         Repair dinghy repair. We had a hole in and repaired the dinghy in the Bahamas. Our repair was not particularly professional; the pontoon deflates over a period of ~one week and the repair is an eyesore. We need it fixed so the pontoon holds air and the repair doesn’t look quite so bad. Maybe a day.

·         Repair Middle Head. The head does not flush properly. I think it can be done in half a day, but I would give them a day if they needed it.

·         Repair/replace port#1 outlet and fuse. We have had the others repaired in about 2 hours each.

·         Check Electrical cords. I would like someone to check all our electrical cords to ensure that they are operating as designed. I am afraid that one or more might be bad. Again, three cords, one

·         Watermaker

o   Repair. I am not sure what’s wrong, but the motor seems to run roughly. Could it simply be that I need a new membrane?

o   Replace seacock handle

o   Pickle.

o   Okay, I have seen all this stuff done by a competent repairman. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours, but if it takes a day-and-a-half, I can live with it.

·         Replace forward bilge pump switch at the helm station. I am going to try and fix this before I leave. If not, the switch that turns the switch to “manual” does not work. It can probably be done in two hours.

·         Repair door to fresh water wash down on aft deck. Half-day maybe?

·         Generator

o   Repair generator “start” system. Our generator does one of three things when we try to start it. (1) Starts right up and runs beautifully. (2) Starts, runs for 3 seconds, then dies. It will start up after we continue to try starting it. (3) Nothing. It is like the switch isn’t working, but it isn’t the switch.

o   Remote oil filter for generator

·         Check trim tabs. I don’t need them very often, so am not willing to pay much to have them fixed. But if it is simple, I would like them to work. An hour?

·         Take out icemaker and make storage space in salon. Door should either look like the existing cabinet doors or should be louvered (accordion). Maybe a half-day? The difficult part will be the door, I suspect.