I was going to tell you all about how the weather gods had kept us from cruising for TWO weeks to Ocracoke for the Ocrafolk music festival. And, also that you should change your raw water impeller every two years or your engine will overheat. But, I'm not going to get into all of that. Nope!

Today we had a wonderful cruise from our home port marina, Hudgins Horn Harbor Marina, to Onancock town wharf marina. It was so splendid that I didn't want to travel at our normal cruising speed. Just a little slower. We like cruising at low speed. You get to take in nature and see things not seen in a speedboat.

Navigation wise, I only had one exchange with another cruiser that was overtaking me. He has AIS ( automatic Identification System ( AIS ) and so does Liquid Therapy. The systems keep each boat on that system aware of what the other boats and commercial shipping are doing. So, I call the boat overtaking us on the VHF radio ( Very High Frequency, You wouldn't want to use very low frequency, now would you? )
The boat agreed to pass our stern instead of our very close bow which would have been a dangerous situation. Anyhow, it was a pleasant exchange and we continued holding our course and speed.

Hummm, then there is a cargo ship going 12.9 knots up the channel to Baltimore. He is 4 miles away and in an overtaking situation too. Am I going to cross his bow? Well I have plenty of time cross the shipping channel well ahead of him.. All calculations are 2 miles are the closet point we will be. He has not reached his turn in the Baltimore channel. I don't call the ship and proceed in well in front of his path and am alive to type this. This was a very safe crossing. I am well out of the channel as he turns away from me.and passes behind me 1.8 miles from me. Even though that was safe it always makes me a bit nervous. ( The engine has been running great for 14 years for me and actually 44 years totally. So, why would it decide to cut off in front of a ship. It could happen. There's a song there somewhere.

Anyhow, the bay was great and Onancock Creek is beautiful over 5 miles in length with wonderful homes on both side of the creek.

Docking - We've docked lots and have it down to a science. Yep that's right, it's always different. We had asked for a stern in port side finger pier and never got a confirmation on the reservation website. A phone call goes to voice mail. All we know is we have slip 10 and there is no marina diagram online. As we get closer to the marina someone calls the marina on the VHF. After that boat finishes his exchange with the marina I get my turn speaking with the marina about our slip assignment. The dockmaster confirms we are stern in floating dock with port side finger pier. We arrive and there is a dock boy and dock girl to assist us ( That means two $10 tips instead of one ). Neither one of the dock hands looked like they'd ever tied a boat up. The wind god cranks up docking wind. It always gusts up when you are docking. I get the boat in the slip and am jockeying it side to side and waiting for " How far back until I hit? From the dockhands, no reply. I think they need A.I. cause it just ain't happening from them. After we tip them, I retie all the lines. One line the boy tied wasn't even secured. The guy has tied a stern line as though it was a spring line. The dock boy also told us the water on the dock was just water out of the creek and not to put it in our water tanks! WHAT? We are very low on water and were planning on filling our tanks with city water. When we checked in at the office the REAL dock master said he didn't know where the boy got that idea. The water was city water and we and the boat next to us that needed water joked about that. Liquid Therapy is full of water now. The port side tie did not work out as the finger pier is too short to let us get off at our gate. I hate short finger piers.

Our Liquid Therapy drink for today was Deep Eddy Pink Grapefruit and Lemon mixed. Calmed us down from the docking fiasco.

We walked into town and ate at the Blarney Stone Pub. Susan got a hamburger and I got Shepherd's Pie. All excellent. And now we think we might stay an extra day to explore Onancock. It is really a pretty town.

Today's picture is the afternoon sun at Onancock Wharf.