Brooke playing the ukulele we sent him from Huahine, French Polynesia.


From Norfolk we made our way north into the Chesapeake Bay as far as we could sail in one day and that brought us to Deltaville. We had stayed at Deltaville Marina for 4 1/2 months in the summer of 2009 after our false start towards the Caribbean. Deltaville was a great place for the kids and me to stay when Michael went back to Canada for a few months to work. It became our home away from home. And what made it so great was the staff; Dockmaster Ed Peake (voted Best Dockmaster by Chesapeake Bay Magazine, 2 years in a row!) and Tom Neiger, aka Miss Susan!

Our intention was to anchor outside to avoid the narrow, shallow winding channel, but when I called Ed to say hello and tell him we'd be nearby, he talked me into coming in and staying a night (thank you, Ed!!!). Well, it didn't take too much talking. We were all very keen to go in and say hello! And in the end, it was a good choice because it was blowing 25 knots on the bay! It ended up that we stayed two nights and had a wonderful time with old friends; Brooke and Susan from m/v Liquid Therapy who drove an hour to come say hello and new friends with whom we made music and told sailing stories.

Happy yet sad, we left Deltaville Monday morning for our next and last stop - we thought - to Point Lookout Marina on the Potomac River, where we'd planned to leave Gromit. We arrived at Point Lookout mid-afternoon and after a couple of hours of looking around and considering our options, we decided that it was not the place to leave Gromit for sale. Mainly, it was quite far from the main boating hub of Annapolis, Maryland. If we were keeping Gromit, we'd have no problem with being at this marina, but we felt that Gromit needed to be closer to Annapolis in a little spiffier place. We had another place in mind - Holiday Point Marina - just around the corner from Annapolis, with whom we had corresponded since South Africa. When we need to make a decision quickly and the choice is not obvious we use the trusty 'pros and cons' method to help us decide. With the decision made, we told the dock-boy that we'd be leaving and headed out to anchor for the night in a sheltered spot in front of the marina.

We had just thrown down the anchor and shut off the engine when we heard a beautiful chorus of women's voices calling 'Gromit, Gromit', from shore. With the surprised 'who knows us here?' look towards shore - we were about 600 feet off - it took us a few moments to recognize our dear friends Caroline, Ruth and Alexandra and let the confusion clear about how they knew we were here. Social media did it! Zoe and Maia had posted which marina we were heading for earlier in the day and we were found!

What a reunion! Six years had passed, yet not a day had passed. We picked up from where we had left off, which was when we left Deltaville in the autumn of 2009. What a fantastic pleasure to have been able to have a few hours with our dear friends. We even offered them to stay the night, but unfortunately they had to go back home. We were not sad though, because we'd just had time together and we knew that we'd see them in Canada soon!