Chestertown to Herring Bay

Chestertown to Herring Bay – October 17 to 30

Click on the above thumbnail for a map of points visited during this time period.

Barb:

It's cold up here! We have been using the heater on our boat for the first time. It's defintely time to head south.

During the last two weeks we have been to Chestertown where we met Phyllis and Tom Davenport on Cocoon. They are from British Colombia and had their boat shipped over from the West coast three years ago. They spend six months a year in Canada and the other six months on their boat -- mainly in the Bahamas. We spent a couple of enjoyable relaxed days there with them before heading up to Baltimore to get our engine room fan installed.

We discovered that Baltimore is a beautiful city with a vibrant downtown - especially the Inner Harbor. Norfolk had its mermaids , but in Baltimore there is on almost every street corner a crab. Most are very attractive. We took photos of a few of them. Chuck got in a couple of runs while there and we did a lot of walking. We got caught in the rain a couple of miles from the boat and were considering taking a water taxi back to the boat, but decided we could use the exercise. The water taxis are wonderful as the downtown surrounds the Inner Harbor and it is easier to jump on one of them than to try to drive around.

Phyllis and Tom joined us in Baltimore at the Anchorage Marina after a couple of days. They gave us a copy of the latest "Passage Maker" magazine (the best trawler cruising magazine out) that published an article written by Phyllis about the northern Bahamas. Pretty cool! Phyllis' aunt from Canada was going to join them for a week of sightseeing in Baltimore and Washington, DC. We left them to their sightseeing and headed back to Magothy Marina to pick up our G-PIRB that we ordered at the boat show. Unfortunately, after cruising the five miles up the river to pick up the package and anchor for the evening, we discovered that the package only included an emergency grab bag and not the G-PRIB. Grrrrr! Kathleen, who had helped us get our electrical reverse Y converter last week, agreed to collect the G-PRIB when it arrived at the marina and get it to us.

The weather report was bad for the next couple of days as the forecasters expected that Hurricane Wilma would impact the area, so we decided to head to a marina in Annapolis and spend a few days enjoying the city while riding out the storm. It turned out to be a false alarm as we had a lot of rain but not much wind.

As we were about to leave Annapolis to begin our journey south, we got a call from Kathleen telling us that the G-PRIB had arrived and asking us for a favor. If we would show our boat to some potential buyers on Saturday, we could have a slip at a marina south of Annapolis until then. At first we were reluctant to postpone our journey south but then we realized that we could use those days to get some projects done and make arrangements for all the additional equipment we were going to need before we begin our offshore journey to the Bahamas and parts south. We agreed to Kathleen's offer and headed to Herrington Harbour South Marina and had an enjoyable four days there. It's a beautiful marina and resort. The cell reception was bad at our slip so I had to bike up to the bay and make my calls. The marina has an outdoor wedding chapel on the bay which is beautiful.

We arranged to get a SSB (single side band radio) installed while we are in Savannah over Thanksgiving as well as our batteries replaced. We ordered all the spare parts for the engine, generator, heads, water maker, and line cutter (Spurs). We did not get the new anchor or liferaft ordered as we are still deciding which ones to get. Hopefully, we'll get those two done next week.

On Saturday Kathleen brought Bob and Susan (who are interested in buying a Krogen 48') over to look at the boat and we took them out for a cruise. We hope they do indeed purchase a 48', as it would be fun to cruise with them -- they were very pleasant folks.

Pictures from Baltimore, Annapolis and Herrington Harbour South Marina