Days 306 through 309:

Off once again bright and early (it's our MO now) to go up and cross the Bay to Cambridge, MD. Our good friends, Chris and CC Cunningham, purchased a Little Harbor 38 this Spring and arrived with two of their kids to outfit "Safari" and bring her home to Marion. We have an easy trip powering (wind is right on the nose--Steve says every single day it's been on the nose except one...unbelievable) and head down the Choptank River towards Cambridge and on in towards the face dock at Yacht Maintenance Co. by early afternoon. There is "Safari" with Chris and the kids busily working. We have a nice reunion... Steve spends time with Chris helping out with boat technical stuff and CC and I head out to Walmart and the food store to deal with her myriad chores and a couple of my own. We go like crazy with two carts around Walmart and the grocery store and get back to the boat pooped at 6PM. A cocktail aboard "Safari" later after all gear is stowed and then we head out to a nearby spot for dinner. This is so much fun to hook up with the Cunninghams! They, however, have a LOT to do to outfit, shakedown and just plain ready the boat for the trip to Marion.

The next AM we leave for the La Trappe Creek anchorage (where we had our hurricane hole slip up at the end of La Trappe Creek last Fall), which is only five or so miles away. CC, Chris and the kids finish their chores and head out to meet us for lunch and a swim that afternoon. We spend the night in this beautiful anchorage and the Cunninghams return to their slip in the yard, in the (unlikely it seems) event that they might encounter any problems that the yard needs to correct.

We are off to our much-loved Oxford the next day and motor down into Town Creek for a spot at the Oxford Yacht Agency where we spent so much time last Fall. It is HOT.... The Cunninghams follow that afternoon and get a mooring off the Tred Avon Yacht Club. We swim at the Strand beach and then have cocktails aboard Katannah and dinner at an Oxford seafood spot. Crab, crab and more crab.

Monday AM and we are off the dock at 6AM to head through Knapps Narrows and up around Tilghman Island towards our other very favorite spot, the Miles River Yacht Club in St. Michaels. This weather is REALLY getting hot, and it is okay while we are underway in the AM but really still and boiling hot in the afternoon. Fortunately, the friendly Miles River YC allows us the use of their pool. Phew. The Cunninghams roll in in mid afternoon and everyone jumps ship for the pool to cool off. No sooner did we get out of the pool and into our (cold) showers, then we were overheated again in ten minutes. Humidity--big time. We celebrated the Cunningham's great new boat with champagne and hor d's aboard "Safari" that evening (me with an ice bag on my neck as I was starting to feel weird) and then, mercifully, the breeze came up as the sun went down and we all started to cool off ever so slightly.

The next day it's time to move for us...got to make tracks. The Cunninghams are cruising, but we are in "delivery mode".

Pix in corresponding album.

In case you're wondering.... The pole on our stern/port side used to hold our Globalstar satellite dome. Two weeks after we left last August Globalstar decided to pull a ton of their satellites down to "reconfigure" them. So of course this rig did not work from Day One. We met more owners along the way who were infuriated by this Globalstar business. They will be out of business soon for sure. Fortunately for us, the nice owner of Voyager Electronics in Essex, MA who sold us the equipment told us the truth about what was going on with Globalstar and promised us a complete refund. We had the dome removed when we hit FL in April and shipped it to MA. Now we are sporting a plant on the dome. Not very yachty, but it is our fun protest against Globalstar...it's our "Growbalstar". Hey, you gotta be a little lighhearted when you are gypsies. :)