Today's disastre de jour was the female end of the extension cord deciding to weld itself to the shore charge connector and finally burn out totally. This signals itself by the 120VAC devices running aboard suddenly shutting off. Great! A quick unplug, disassembly and a flying trip to the West Marine store for replacements. That's one of the problems with using unsealed 30A connectors - you never know if they are waterproof enough to withstand a rainstorm like the downpour that we had a couple of days ago. In my experience they aren't. The rain water can get into the connections and short them out causing a trickle voltage current that gradually heats up the connector and burns it out. This means the unsealed cords that we have are for fair-weather only unless we bag and tape them and not to be used otherwise. Sigh!

Otherwise we made a trip into White Stone to check out a gourmet take out place that we heard about. We found it but already had plans for diner tonight so we will try them another day. What did really shock us was the amount of road kill on these little roads. On the trip this morning in the 50 km stretch we counted at least 25 including possums, raccoons, skunks, and deer which were by far the most common - considering the highway speed on these roads is a maximum of 55mph and usually less I can't understand how people can't avoid them or moreover why the critters don't dodge. In either case one or the other party must be pretty dumb. The biggest beneficiaries are the flocks of vultures that seem to be having a pretty good thing out of it.

More tidying and drying today and getting ready for tomorrow or the next day when the Perkins comes out.

I think we'll watch TV on the computer or a movie tonight. Hang on there is also the oscars but it is a pay for view. Barb is doing the computer geek stuff to find us a way in without paying. As an aside we bought a really nice t-bone steak to BBQ and share tonight, the first BBQ aboard this year. The thought of it makes all the rest of the clag seem almost worth it. It has been marinating in one of the recipies that we have included in the cookbook all day so it should be really yummy. I will be the maesto of the Q while Barb contributes the potatoes, the carrots, and the fried onions and mushrooms.

Hmmm! This place is starting to come alive for the spring. Deltaville has had a cold winter by their standards and folks here have not been out to their boats but this weekend has been more temperate and they have been coming out to see if their babies survived. Still it's quite a quiet yard by comparison. This part of the Chesapeake is one marina after another with all of them seeming to be doing quite well and full of boats. I can only guess what the Bay must look like in the summer time, boats from shore to shore no doubt and I had thought that Long Island Sound was bad.

There is a beautiful 50 something foot ketch up on the hard here called Water Music out of Annapolis, MD for sale accordning to the intenet for $300K. If I was ever to look at trading Nelleke in for something bigger this would be it. Of course it would have to be done without any money changing hands as we are sooooo broke.

A quick addition from Barb.
Meaning no disrespect whatsoever, the only thing more plentiful on the back roads that we are travelling on is the number of churches - every bend you turn yields yet another church. It makes you wonder how the small communities can support so many.

I was peering into the water by the dock and saw many tiny jellyfish - I did not expect to see anything as the water is still very cold.