Day 69 - Worton Creek, MD
09 June 2012 | Anchored at Worton Creek, MD
Fri 8 Jun 2012
Anchored at Worton Creek, MD
We enjoyed a good sleep despite the loud music and revelry 75 feet across the narrow fairway. What started out as a rather hot late afternoon and then a pleasant evening turned quite cool by morning. Not a bad thing, really.
The chilly morning made it easy to stay in bed until late (almost 0630), so we didn't get underway until 0730. With that relatively early departure, we enjoyed a half to full knot of fair current all the way up the bay to the entrance to Worton Creek. Not only was the current in our favor, but we could use the wind to our advantage for most of the run, as well.
We had misinterpreted what our friend Bill had told us, so we anchored near the entrance to Worton Creek for lunch to see if the tall ships would pass on their way to Norfolk, VA. Only after checking the Internet did we realize that the ships were already south of us, so we weighed anchor (with a working windlass!) and motored up the creek to anchor right off the Worton Creek Marina.
The cell signal is poor here, but I was able to call the marina to discover the both the bad and good news. The parts are not likely to be here until Tue (hopefully Wed at the latest) and that means we will be "stuck" here at least until Thursday. The good news is that they invited us to come and dock for free and use all their shower/pool facilities until we are done with the repairs, since it is not our fault that the parts are not here yet. That is quite a generous offer that I doubt most marinas would extend. We will stay at anchor in our relative solitude tonight and hope that the evening cools off since it is quite warm, although not too bad as of 1500. Tomorrow (Sat) we will move to the dock and easy access to whatever is ashore that we care to do.
Our friend, Harvey (husband of Diane's cousin Sara) will be back down to get on his boat (with Sara) Sun afternoon, so we will visit with them both then until they move their boat to Oxford, MD where they like to hang out for the summer as they can.
Our afternoon was relaxing after Duane figured out the problem with the auto-pilot and made an adjustment we hope will fix it. Diane finally found a good opportunity to sun herself on the deck while Duane studied the charts for the passages north from here later next week. In the mid-afternoon heat, a nap was in order for both of us and it felt great.
Even though it was still on the warm side close to 1800, we elected to get a lot of the cooking done so that we could concentrate on other things over the next few days. For the benefit of neophyte shipboard cooks, a little pre-planning goes a long way to making life easier. For example, we did the following all in one large, deep pot in a series of stages: sautéed onions for two meals, sautéed mushrooms for the chicken Marsala, browned the chicken medallions, prepared the Marsala wine sauce, browned the pork sausage and ground beef for the future lasagna, pre-cooked two sausage patties, cooked the penne pasta, and then heated the chicken with the penne for dinner tonight.
There was only one pot and one set of utensils to clean, and we now have the makings for 8 or more meals. The key is to have the right music playing, a soothing beverage of choice, and love in your heart.
Eating topside right after sundown at 2015 was very pleasant as the temperature had moderated and the light breeze was delightful. Clyde thought it was quite peaceful and demonstrated it by spending much time topside in various places. At least 5 boats have joined us in the anchorage but no one is the least bit crowded. At low tide, we registered 5.2 feet and we draw 4.6 feet, so we are very close to the bottom, but with no wave action in this protected area, we will be fine.