We just enjoyed our first night at anchor for the 2010 sailiing season. After doing a few chores on Saturday morning, we left the dock about 2:00 to head to our favorite anchorage on St. Leonard's Creek. It is very summer-like this weekend on the Chesapeake with temps in the high 80's. A nice breeze kept us comfortable, though. After anchoring, we fired up the grill and made our first boat burgers of the year. Why do they always taste better when they're cooked on the back of a boat and eaten in a quiet anchorage?? The wind really piped up overnight, so we got an early start back to the marina. We were getting gusts of over 22mph on the way across the Patuxent River. Luckily, our marina is in the lee of Solomons Island, so we had a smooth, uneventful docking experience (the best kind). We definitely are excited about anchoring out the first weekend in May. It's usually closer to Memorial Day before the weather and life allow us to get out for the first time. Hopefully this is a good omen and we're looking forward to many more weekends on the boat.

We here in the Washington, D.C. area are experiencing the snowiest winter on record. We have had 4 snowstorms in the past week and a half that dropped a total here at our home in Northern Virginia of 49 inches.....and it just started snowing AGAIN! Just before Christmas we had a snowstorm that dropped almost 20 inches on us, making the first really white Christmas in 20 years. The area is paralyzed. The federal government is closing again tomorrow for the fourth day in a row. As a teacher, I haven't been to school since last Thursday. We are warm and comfortable with plenty of food, so we are trying to enjoy the time at home.

We left the boat in the water this winter. There were wind gusts of over 50 mph in the area of our marina at Solomons, MD, today. With the heavy snow and winds, we hope the boat is faring well. She's tied with extra heavy lines, so all should be well. Who knows when we'll be able to get there to check on her.

We've been passing the time reading old issues of sailing magazines and dreaming of the sailing season, which at this point can't come too soon. We are moving to a new marina in Solomons this spring, and are excited about the location of our new slip and about getting to know our new neighbors on the dock.

We have obviously been remiss in updating this blog, but we hope to be better this year about including information about our weekends on the Chesapeake. They can't come too soon!

This boat pool/nettle net is definitely on our list of wouldn't-want-to-do-without items. If you are familiar with the Chesapeake Bay in the summer, you know about sea nettles - little stinging jelly fish creatures. This net is designed to be easily deployed off a boat and provides a barrier to the sea nettles (and any other creatures) that might interfere with your enjoyment of a dip in the cool water. It is one of those rare items that actually perform exactly as advertised. It comes packed in a mesh bag slightly larger than a football, and it claims to take only minutes to deploy and retrieve. All true! It even easily folds to its original size to fit back in the mesh bag. We first saw one being used on another boat in an anchorage about 3 years ago. It took us 2 years to locate the manufacturer, but we found him just in time to order one before our Chesapeake cruise last July. By happenstance we chose the hottest week of the year to go cruising - temps were hovering around 100 every day. We would not have survived at anchor without the boat pool. This picture was taken in St. Leonard's Creek, Maryland, off the Patuxent River on Memorial Day Weekend. Ours is the 8 foot model, and we have had 4 people bobbing comfortably in it. They also come in 12 and 20 foot diameters. We have absolutely no affiliation with the manufacturer of this item, but we wholeheartedly recommend it! Check them out online at http://www.nettle-net.com/.