Click on the above thumbnail for a map of points visited during this time period.
After leaving Washington, DC, we headed down the Potomac back to the Chesapeake. We stopped in St. Mary's for a couple of days where we had planned to see more of the historic site, but didn't find the time. (Mostly because Chuck scuba-dived to clean the bottom of the hull.) Next on to Solomons for the Krogen Cruiser's Rendezvous. This is a yearly gathering of folks who own Krogens. We have been driving up each year since 2002. This was our first year in attendance with our boat, which made it a lot more fun. There were over 100 folks at the Rendezvous and 41 Krogen boats.
Because there were so many boats at the Rendezvous it was decided to stack them in side by side (with sterns to the docks.) This made for close company but interesting to live right next to so many folks for four days. What fun! At the Rendezvous we had excellent speakers on how to handle medical emergencies, on the latest navigation software, on forecasting the weather, on maintaining diesel engines, on cool boat gadgets, etc. On two of the afternoons we had "Krogen Krawls" where half of the boats were open for the rest of us check them out and to determine who had made the best improvement since the last year.
Chuck was going to be the photographer for the group until he set my new camera down on the dock to help bring in a boat on the first day. We never found the camera again and had to bum some photos of the Rendezvous from other folks. We finally gave up hope in ever finding it and ordered another one.
After the Rendezvous we headed to the east shore of the Chesapeake and spent two days in Oxford. The most interesting thing there was a special museum on oystering. We found it fascinating and learned all sorts of things about oystering - but don't ask me to repeat any of those facts today. They say it takes three times to really learn something. I guess I need to go back two more times.
Our next move was to Annapolis where we had an appointment with an electronics technician to look at our charger/inverter. It has been driving Chuck crazy because it is occasionally a bit flaky. Unfortunately, the Annapolis Boat Show was about to happen so the only place we could find a slip was in a marina eight miles north of Annapolis. When we arrived at Magothy Marina, we discovered that they didn't have a slip with 50 amp power for us. It was too late in the day to go elsewhere so we were stuck with no power. Fortunately, Kathleen, who is a Krogen saleswoman and lives on her boat in the marina, arrived home from work and immediately offered to drive us to a marine store in downtown Annapolis to buy a "smart" reverse Y converter (which converts two 30-amp shore sources to one 50-amp lead to the boat.) We will forever be indebted to her.
After getting our charger diagnosis of an engine room that is too hot and a plan to install a larger fan suitable for continuous use, we decided to hang around Annapolis and attend the boat show on Friday the 14th. It was a great decision as we were able to talk to experts about many of the things we have to maintain on board and things we need to get. We bought a GPIRB (a safety device used to signal one's position in an emergency situation.) We need to buy a life raft, a SSB (single side band radio), a new dinghy and numerous other things, but won't be around Annapolis long enough for delivery. At least we now know what we are going to get and just need to figure out how to get them while we are in Savannah in November. We also ran into a lot of our Krogen friends while at the boat show, and had a great dinner with some of them.
On Saturday the 15th we decided to leave the marina and begin checking out more of the area around Annapolis. We returned our rental car and just as we were getting ready to depart, we got a call from our Savannah friend Ed Flinn. He and his wife Gwen were at the boat show. They learned we were in the area while taking a tour of some the Krogen boats at the Show. We decided to get together for dinner that evening, so stayed at the marina for another day. It was wonderful seeing them again. They gave us a ride back to our boat and I was taken aback to discover that they were giving us a ride in my old wonderful Highlander that they bought when we sold most of our possessions. I actually got tears in my eyes. Strange!
On Sunday we intended on leaving for Chestertown, but with the winds gusting to 30 mph we decided to stay tied to the dock one more day. It gave me time to wash the boat and then write this update and read the Sunday paper. And it gave Chuck time to wax the flybridge and eyebrow on the pilothouse. :-) We're going to explore Chestertown and St. Michaels on the eastern shore for a few days and come back to Annapolis for the fan installation later this week or early next.
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