Tilghman Island & St. Michaels, MD

Tuesday morning was spent doing laundry, with only one washer and dryer it took some time.  In the afternoon we took the dingy around to the east side of Tilghman Island and mailed Kate’s Barbie that she forgot to take home with her.  It has been windy all day, so a good thing we didn’t plan on traveling.  No sunset tonight as it is raining.

Wednesday morning we still had some rain showers so we took our time in leaving.  Knapp’s Marina has a continental breakfast that was included so we took advantage of that before leaving.  We only had a short trip planned for today and we were tied up at St. Michaels, Md. around noon.  We enjoyed a walk around town with its many small shops and beautiful older homes. St. Michaels is known as “The Town that Fooled the British”.  Legend has it, that the residents of the town were forewarned about the British that were going to attack their 6 or 7 shipyards and hoisted lanterns to the masts of ships and in the tops of the trees, tricking the British by causing the cannons to overshoot the town.

Grandpa like pickles.

Washingtonian from Chicago, we last saw in Charleston, SC.

Sailing schooner in St. Michaels

St. Michaels work boats

Sunset in St. Michaels

Neat old garage.

Thursday it was finally a little cooler and we toured Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.  Hooper Strait Lighthouse was moved to the museum in 1966, it was originally located on the treacherous waters of Hooper Strait.  There was a very interesting boat yard where we were able to watch traditional boat builders restoring old boats. This was one of the best maritime museums we have seen.

Chesapeake Bay Museum

Hoopers Strait Lighthouse

One of five water tanks in Hoopers Strait Lighthouse

Oyster cans.

We had lunch at the Crab Claw Restaurant, where we had been about 6 years ago with Christy and Eric.  We have both decided that crabs are a lot of work and effort for little food. 

John enjoying his crab lunch

We plan on leaving in the morning for Annapolis.  Will keep you posted.

Hugs to all,

Mary and John

Colonial Beach, St. Mary’s, Solomon Island and Tilghman Island

We left D.C. at 6:30 Thursday morning it was overcast, foggy and drizzling but the Potomac was nice and calm until we reached an area that the River widens  where the wind  and waves picked up and we were uncomfortable.  We were not too far from Colonial Beach where we had stayed on our way up the Potomac so getting into this narrow area was not as difficult as the first time.  We decided to stay at a marina that was closer into town called Bayside Marina.  The owner of the Marina, Ed was very helpful and told us about the restaurant at the marina.  We did a quick tour of the small quiet town with a stop at the local coffee house and had a great dinner that evening at the marina.  Everyone in this town was extremely friendly and we would recommend Bayside any time. 

This boat was actually underway!

This is the Potomac River

Remnants of the 50's

 We left Colonial Beach with overcast skies and light rain and fog again.  We are headed to St. Mary’s Maryland, it was the first capital of the state.  The town was established in 1634 by British Colonists and the first to mandate religious tolerance.  The town started to die after 60 years when the capital was moved to Annapolis and disappeared not too long after.  What remains now is one of the country’s best preserved colonial archaeology sites, the area was very interesting and we spent at least 4 hours exploring. The college of St. Mary’s is right in this area as well and they had a dock that we were able to tie to while we explored.    We then anchored for the night in the bay not too far from the college.  It was a beautiful peaceful anchorage.

At the college dock.

Replica of the ship that brought the Colonist's to St. Mary's

The reconstructed church on the original foundation.

On Saturday morning after getting all of the mud off the anchor we were off to Solomon’s Island for two days.  We arrived to the Spring Cove Marina at about 1:00.  It is a very busy boating area, especially on a Saturday afternoon over Memorial Day weekend.  We had a message from John and Mary ( our buddies from Mackinaw City) and learned that they were only a short ways away at the Navel Marina, we made plans to get together on Sunday.  

The Calvert Marine Museum was only a short walk  away from our marina so we spent several hours going through there very interesting exhibits that included history of area ship builders, maritime history, estuarine biology and paleontology.  Drum Point Light was also included. This light house had been moved to the Museum in 1975. The pictures that we have were provided by John’s camera since we have forgotten to take our camera with. Thanks John!

Sunday we took the marina shuttle to the grocery store in the morning, John worked on our holding tank (fun job) and I did a load of laundry.  In the afternoon we had a late lunch with John and Mary and then we went to the Annamarie Gardens together.  They had offered for us to be a buddy boat and stay with them at the Navel Marina and since the weather didn’t sound like it would be good for travel on Monday we were thankful to have this invitation.

Monday morning the wind seemed calm and we decided to go out of the harbor and see what the conditions were like.  As it turned out it was pretty smooth just a few rolling waves so we headed to Tilghman Island.  We were greeted by Greg and Kate from Grianan who had just completed there Loop and were able to chat briefly with Fred and Julaine from Boreas before they left for St. Michael’s.  

Chesapeake mid channel lighthouse.

Boras leaving Knapps Landing Marina

We used the marina bikes and rode over the bridge and onto the island.  We stopped at the workboat harbor and John realized that we had been here in 2005 with Christy and Eric.  When they first moved to DC we came out for a visit and spent the Labor Day weekend at the “Eastern Shore”. 

After the bike ride John worked on a few misc. boat projects while I stayed cool in the cabin reading a book.  We enjoyed happy hour with Greg, Kate and some of their marina friends under the pergola along the river.  We all brought something to grill and had a nice dinner and great view of the sunset.

The plans for tomorrow are to sleep in, do a load of laundry explore a bit with the dinghy, have just a lazy relaxing day.  We will also work on picking spots to stay as we work our way up North.  We will be meeting Kelly and family late June in the 1,000 islands for a week.

Good Night,

Mary and John

Washington D.C.

Well it is Wednesday evening May 23 rd. and we have thoroughly enjoyed our time with Christy, Eric, Jack, Kate and Will. We met all at the Reagan Airport on Saturday morning and we were thrilled to see the three of them greet us with big hugs and kisses, we did get a warm greeting from Christy and Eric as well.  We then  enjoyed the company of Jessica,( Rob- was out of town for the week) Grace and Charlie whom the Schwalb’s stayed with while visiting.  We  had a nice  evening and dinner  with a co worker of Eric’s who happened to live just down the street from Jessica and Rob.  On Sunday the kids and parents came to the boat in the morning and explored all of their familiar boat places, we then explored Capitol Hill, Eastern Market, and had seafood dinner on board Passport.  Monday we toured the Space and Air Museum and had a great barbecue with Jessica and family. Thank you soo much.    Tuesday we went with Christy and the kids to the History Museum and had a  picnic on the Mall, then a quick tour of the Sculpture Museum.  We  had a great time with the grandkids this night for a Passport sleep over.  Wednesday we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast on the boat.  Lunch was at Ed’s Bulletin, a neat place.   We all enjoyed  a nice ride on Passport to Georgetown this afternoon before it rained.  It was difficult to say good bye but we  are looking forward to seeing them all again at the completion of our loop in August if all works out.

We will leave you with one picture that I think pretty much says it all about our week.

Love to all,

Mary and John

Colonial Beach to Washington DC

It started raining in the early am so we didn’t leave until 7:30.  It was another cloudy day with periods of light rain as well as some of sun.  When we called the city marina in Alexandria about a slip for two nights we were told it was city policy that we must back into the slip.  We checked an aerial photo and realized with the dinghy hanging off the back as well as the problems this boat has backing that we would have to pass on Alexandria. We ended up for the night at the National Harbor that is across the Potomac from Alexandria.  It is a resort with several large hotels, shopping and restaurants, a little on the pricey side for us, so we will move on tomorrow and see if we can get into our slip for the next week a little early at Capital Yacht Club in D.C.  We did have a very enjoyable Anniversary dinner at McCormick and Schmick’s.

Mount Vernon

National Harbor

Wednesday morning we decided to take advantage of the free washer and dryers at the National Harbor and maybe off set the expense of the slip a little so we did eight loads of laundry, including our lines from the boat.  They had gotten really bad looking and we were both surprised how white they turned out.  We left for Capital Yacht Club around noon, since it was only about 5 miles away we took a side trip down past the Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson Monuments and under five bridges and into Georgetown.  It was fun to see this all from the water as we had seen it many times when we had visited Christy and Eric when they lived in D.C. five years ago. 

This area is busy with a lot of Police, Coast Guard boats and many military helicopters.  As we came into our harbor today we were greeted with four helicopters (one equipped with missiles), coast guard boat and two fire boats all going after something at full speed.  Quiet a sight. 

Woodrow Wilson Bridge leading into Alexandria Va.

Arlington Memorial Bridge

Georgetown

Our welcoming to D.C.

John has been on a spring cleaning of Passport over the past few days, working on the yellow that has come from the tannins in the river waters.  He has gotten her looking very good again.

Thursday morning a few more boat projects, John needs to clean all the sea strainers and try and stop a small leak by the rudder.  I hope to find a nail salon close by while he finishes up the boat projects.  This afternoon we plan to do a bit of sightseeing.  Tomorrow we are sleeping in and will do some re-provisioning for when Christy and family arrive on Saturday.  They will be staying with friends but all the kids will be doing a sleepover on the boat.  We are very excited!!

Christy has put together a whole itinerary for the week they will be here in DC so most likely we won’t be blogging until we are on the move again.  

Izzy is celebrating her third birthday on May 20th and we wish her a very happy day and wish that we could be with her to celebrate. 

Hugs to all,

Mary and John