Aboard VTwin

We have spent the last month cruising the Chesapeake Bay, at least a small part of it. We checked out new beautiful protected anchorages. We visited a couple of new marinas. Olversons, which is in Virginia off the south side of the Potomac, was a real find. Friendly people, and an active local yacht club, which was holding a boil on a Saturday, so we stayed an extra day to attend. What is a boil you say? This one was a combination of crawfish, shrimp, andouille sausage, chicken, potatoes, corn, and a whole ton of Old Bay Seasoning. It is cooked in huge pots, and when it's ready, the contents of the pots are drained and poured out onto big long tables covered in plastic. Chuck says it was awesome. Margi, being allergic to shrimp, had a hot dog. The company more than made up for it.

We had dinner with Stuart, Amy, and friends, and had terrific soft shell crabs. Stuart taught Margi how to clean them, hopefully we'll have a chance to put that knowledge to work! A fun brilliant evening.

We met a gentleman who owns a beautiful 60 some foot wooden ketch, that he had built in Indonesia and sailed back to the states in '99. We do mean sail since there is no engine. He gave us a tour and it was impressive.

We attended a Talk Like A Pirate party, had a great time and met even more wonderful people. Yes, we have stuff in our closets on board that allows us to dress up like pirates. You never know when you might be invited to a pirate party.

We hung out with friends from St Inigoes and made more friends there. Awesome people all, we cannot say enough good things about them.

We stayed at the Egeli's dock for almost a week, visiting with Stuart and Amy, and getting to know Stuart's parents Stu and Peter (yes the names can get confusing sometimes, haha!). They taught us how to bait and empty crab pots, how to cook the crabs, and how to eat them. They lent us their 1996 Buick Estate station wagon to run errands in, and having learned to drive in these kinds of vehicles, we both felt like we were back in high school with the family car. We loved hanging out with them and hearing their stories.

We met Dennis and Ron on Ricochet at the mouth of the Potomac one morning to retrieve gear they were bringing us from Michigan. It was too rough to raft up the 2 boats, so we lowered the dinghy, and Chuck zoomed over for the handoff.

We sailed up the Potomac (no, not all the way, just 15 miles or so to Tall Timbers) with 2 other boats from the St Inigoes Yacht Club, anchoring out for the night, having happy hour on our boat, and going ashore to meet more club members for dinner. The weather was fantastic, and we all had a great sail, even though we had a do a bunch of tacking, and eventually turned on the engine to get in before midnight. The next day we were supposed to sail back down the Potomac, anchor out again and have dinner at another restaurant, then sail back to St Inigoes on Sunday. The weather gods decided otherwise. The wind was building and expected to continue to build. We all had a fast downwind sleigh ride back down the river, surfing on the waves - what our boat was built to do, fun and comfortable. Back at St Inigoes again, the Frys and the Higgins took their boats to their respective docks, we anchored in "our" spot in front of the Fry's house, and rode with them in the car to the restaurant for dinner. A lovely weekend!

Then on to the boat show in Annapolis! Months ago we had made reservations at Port Annapolis Marina, so we went to the dock for 3 nights (3 very expensive nights). We attended a weather seminar led by Lee Chesneau (who while working for the National Weather Service first identified the "Perfect Storm"), bought some boaty stuff, volunteered at the Cruising Outpost booth, visited with Bob and Jody, went to the CO party, paid some outrageous Uber fees, stared at the outside of some ridiculously large catamarans, were treated to breakfast by Stuart and Amy (so happy to have a last chance to see them until next year!), rode the water taxi, and left our hardly larger than our boat slip Monday morning to bash our way back to the nearby anchorage (2.5 hours on flat waters from the anchorage to the dock on Friday, 5 hours to return on Monday with 30 knot winds on the nose, and building seas-exhilarating but exhausting).

Today, the day after the end of the Annapolis Boat Show, is the traditional start of the fall voyage south for cruisers. We have joined that vast parade south, and as we write this, there are 12 other sailboats in view, also heading south down the bay. As Margi's Dad says, and we're off like a herd of turtles!

We still don't have a firm plan for when and where we will cross to the Bahamas, we're just heading south and will make it up on the way. We will be stopping in Great Bridge (just south of Norfolk) to try again to get our generator fixed, and we will be stopping in Thunderbolt (close to Savannah) to have windows and rain curtains made for the hard top. Other than that, we have no plans and we're sticking to them!