To Baltimore and Beyond

We enjoyed two days in Annapolis, one of our favorite places on the Chesapeake Bay. We tied to a mooring ball in the cove behind St Mary’s Catholic Church on Spa Creek. This is a very peaceful place from which we could dinghy to town. We toured the Maryland State House and wandered the streets of Annapolis. All too soon, it was time to move on again, this time to Baltimore. We traveled under the Francis Scott Key Bridge, past the red, white and blue buoy which marked the spot from where Francis Scott Key saw the flag after the battle for Fort McHenry during the war of 1812 and penned his famous poem, “In Defense of Fort McHenry” which was later set to music and eventually became our National Anthem. Baltimore is beautiful when viewed from the water and we were anxious to explore the city. We toured Fort McHenry and then took the water taxi into the downtown area. The observation level of what they claim is the world’s tallest pentagonal building afforded a “birds eye view” of the city. We were fortunate to have a gorgeous day to explore Baltimore. Today we are in Chesapeake City, the beginning of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. We plan to transit the canal tomorrow, then head up the Delaware River to Philadelphia.

Onward Toward Annapolis

St. Mary’s, MD is the oldest settlement and the first capital of Maryland. It was founded in 1634 by Leonard Calvert, Duke of Baltimore. There is a wonderful University there; they pride themselves in giving an Ivy League education at public university prices. They have a terrific sailing program as well. We toured historic St. Mary’s City as well as the St. Mary's University campus. St. Mary’s Cove is one of our favorite anchorages on the Chesapeake Bay and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to return. We departed St. Mary’s Cove on Sunday, May 24^th, our destination was Oxford, MD but, because there was an air show at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, we deviated to Solomons, MD where we watched the Memorial Day Air Show from our boat. We truly enjoyed seeing the Blue Angels as always and were happy with our decision.. We are currently on a weather hold here at Spring Cove Marina. We will depart for Annapolis tomorrow, weather permitting, and expect to spend a couple days there enjoying another of our favorite places on the Chesapeake Bay.

The Only Way Is Underway

On May 21^st with the engine work finally completed, we departed York River Yacht Haven. We felt fortunate that we found that marina when we encountered these problems. York River Yacht Haven is a family owned marina, the people were terrific, the mechanic excellent and the facilities were great. They were wonderful to us and we hope to return one day. Now our great adventure will continue. We headed back down the York River and into the Chesapeake Bay where we turned north. We are currently at anchor in Horseshoe Bend on the St. Mary’s River. This is a tributary of the Potomac River and a very beautiful location. It was one of our favorite anchorages on our last trip to this area and we are very happy to be back. We have watched Eagles soar and are enjoying the peace and tranquility of this truly lovely spot.

We will stay here for a couple of days then go on to Oxford, MD on the Eastern Shore, then to Annapolis and Baltimore before we depart the Chesapeake Bay.

Looking Forward to New Adventures

Sunday finds us still at the York River Yacht Haven. Tomorrow will be two weeks but we have good news. The Mechanic finally got to us on Friday and found a much less significant problem than we had originally feared. He ordered the parts and we were able to pick them up yesterday. We hope to have them installed on Monday, if this happens we can be underway again on Tuesday. We hope this will take care of the problem and look forward to continuing our trip.
We have enjoyed our time here, riding bikes and exploring by Dinghy. Virginia Institute of Marine Science has an aquarium here on Gloucester Point and the Marina opened a new restaurant on Tuesday. The executive chef and owner recently retired from Williamsburg Inn and is well respected in his field. The food is fabulous! This is not the usual marina restaurant. Yesterday we returned to Norfolk to tour the MacArthur Memorial, we found it to be most impressive.
We send our best wishes to all of you, our friends and family.

Our Trip Delayed

We departed Norfolk on Monday morning; the weather forecast was for good weather though cool and cloudy. the wind was expected to come up in the afternoon so we departed early. The trip went well, always very interesting traveling through that area with all of the naval shipyards. As we turned into the Chesapeake Bay, the wind picked up and so did the swells. They increased to about 5 feet which wasn't a problem until the oil pressure on the starboard engine fluctuated and Harry had to shut it down. As Leslie drove, Harry checked the oil in the engines to find the starboard engine quite low. As usual, he had checked it before our departure. We canceled our destination and began looking for a marina that could handle engine work; we headed for York River Yacht Haven on Sarah's Creek. We were pleased to find a large, well equipped marina. It turns out that we are in the best marina in the area to have an engine worked on but this is a busy time with people getting their boats ready for the "season" and found it will be at least a couple of weeks before they can get to us. At this point, we don't know how long it will take to fix the problem or how serious it is but have a suspicion it will be several weeks before we will again be on our way. For the time being, "somewhere" means Sarah's Creek.

















We have been exploring Sarah's Creek by dinghy. Sarah's Creek is directly across the York River from the Yorktown Battlefield and the historic town of Yorktown. The Marina owner loaned us his truck to take our bikes across the bridge to ride on some fantastic trails there on Sunday and Saturday evening we had dinner at a highly recommended restaurant overlooking the waterfront. So things are good and we are "making Lemonade". Please think good thoughts for us. We will continue to update the blog as we receive new information.

May finds us in Norfolk, VA. On our way, we visited Beaufort, NC where we saw some of the wild horses of the Shackleford Banks and enjoyed this quaint, waterside town. Next we proceeded up the Neuse River where we spotted a large pod of dolphins playing and several Rays swimming just below the surface.

Our destination was a beautifully planned community on Broad Creek called River Dunes. It is a beautiful area where we experienced gorgeous weather. We stayed two days riding our bikes and exploring the area. Did I mention they had steam showers?

Continuing North on the Pamlico River and crossing the Albemarle Sound, the weather cooled and the wind picked up. It had the feel of early spring here as the trees were just leafing out wearing their bright green colors. This is a very pretty, still unsettled area. As we got closer to Norfolk, we encountered several low bridges, the most notable being Great Bridge. Great Bridge and Great Bridge Lock, our first lock of this trip, work in tandem so that when one passes through the open bridge, the lock is open and waiting for the boats to enter and tie up.





We arrived at Waterside Marina in Norfolk on May 1 and have enjoyed our stay here. A highlight was seeing our friends Dave and Rita Park. We plan to depart in the morning for Yorktown and begin our exploration or the Chesapeake Bay.