CHAPTER EIGHTY ONE: OUR WINDOW (OF OPPORTUNITY) ON THE BAY

CHAPTER EIGHTY ONE: OUR WINDOW (OF OPPORTUNITY) ON THE BAY

It’s Wednesday, May 29, and we are safely ensconced at Calvert’s Marina in Solomons, Maryland on the Patuxent River, which flows into the Chesapeake. Solomons is about midway between the most northern point and the most southern point of the Chesapeake, on the western shore. We’ve been here before, last August through early October, and we know what to expect – very good rates, a genial marina owner with a dog who loves belly rubs, a fairly new floating dock with alongside tie up and very old bath and shower facilities. Just a little paint would help, but you get what you pay for. The setting is lovely, on a 70 acre finger of land that juts into Back Creek, just off the Patuxent. And we’re just a few miles from Solomons Island, which has a great maritime museum. Dear friends Janie and Mike have lived in this area for more than 40 years, having worked for the University of Maryland’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology on Solomons Island. They live in a house in the woods near a creek. I biked there one day last fall and we sat out on the deck and had a crab feast. Tasty memory.

Before I get ahead of myself, remember all the weather, current, and wind checking that the Admiral did to determine a good day to cruise from Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake, Virginia to Rebel Marine in Norfolk? Well, it paid off. It took us about 4 hours to make the trip, between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., and the weather was perfect. There was virtually no wind, and the currents were favorable. This was indeed our window of opportunity, and we successfully seized it. It was just two hours later that the winds kicked up at Rebel Marine, the storm clouds came rolling in and the rain came pouring down on Slow Motion and all the other boats at Rebel. This storm lasted most of the day last Friday. And it was still extremely windy on Saturday. So we checked on our next window of opportunity to head further north, and the Admiral found that the Chesapeake was going to have waves of three to four feet through Sunday. However, the forecast was for a short break on Monday, with one foot waves and less wind. I say a “short break”, because the three to four foot waves were forecast to resume on Tuesday, May 28. It appeared that we had just one day for decent travel on the Chesapeake in the foreseeable future.

So the issue became: On Monday, Memorial Day, do we go to Deltaville some 45 miles from Norfolk and hole up there until the Chesapeake is calm? Or do we pull a “Marathon” Day (like our foggy journey from Marco Island to Marathon) and cruise 110 miles on Monday, all the way to Solomons? We knew that going 110 miles in a day would require a speed of 10 miles an hour or better to reach Solomons in 10 or 11 hours, and we knew we would burn fuel at about one gallon per mile. That’s right, ONE GALLON PER MILE. This is not a typo. This is life on a slow moving diesel trawler. On Monday morning at about 5:15 a.m., after checking the weather forecasts for the Chesapeake one more time, the Admiral said: “We’re going to Solomons, leaving in 20 minutes. We pushed off at 5:35 a.m. in calm waters, no wind blowing the SF pennant on the bow. Dawn was rising over the Hampton Bridge/Tunnel, as we motored out of the Willoughby Spit. For the next nine hours, we cruised on the Chesapeake at between 9 and 14 miles per hour. At the beginning we got a great boost from the current to push our speed so far about 10 mph. All the while, the Bay was flat – never mind the forecast of one foot waves. There were no waves. The Admiral turned on the radar to see how it was working, and it worked great! It spotted far off container ships in the commercial shipping channel and closer by sailboats and trawlers. It even picked up most of the buoys, which were equipped for radar detection. Most of the way we were on autopilot. We had to be vigilant for crab traps and boat traffic, but the Chesapeake was very, very good to us.

As we approached the turnoff to Dozier’s Regatta Point Marina in Deltaville, we called to cancel our Monday reservation. The dock master thanked the Admiral for the notice. Apparently, not all cruisers are courteous enough to call and cancel a reservation, and dock masters are often left holding spots and turning away business because of that boorishness. If you ever start cruising, I suggest that you make it a cardinal, inviolable rule to keep every marina posted, with whom you have made a reservation, to let them know about any change of plans. It’s the right thing to do, and they’ll thank you for it profusely. Plus, when you know you’ll be heading past these same marinas heading south and you may need to stay at them, it’s better to be greeted with a smile (“you’re the nice ones who let us know what you’re doing”) than a scowl (“you again, you rude bastard”). You also have a much better chance of getting a good place along the dock, if you have a good reputation and haven’t burned any bridges. Common decency and common sense, right? You’d be surprised how many boaters do not have those traits in any quantifiable measure.

The Admiral had predicted that we would arrive at Solomons at 4 p.m. on Memorial Day, at the earliest. Given the optimal conditions on the Bay and the blazing speed of Slow Motion (I kid, I kid), we pulled up to the floating dock at Calvert’s Marina at 2:40 p.m., nine hours after we had left Norfolk. Not bad for a 1994 Jefferson with a dirty bottom. We got help tying up from Randy and Cindy of Morningstar, whom we had met at Calvert’s last August. They’re part of the Kadey Krogen contingent that has a rendezvous at Calvert’s every October. And they’re both a great source of information about marinas and waterways and locks on the East Coast. They’ve been through the Erie Canal, and Cindy gave me sound advice about wearing gloves to handle the lines in the locks, keeping the fenders away from the grungy lock walls, and tying up for a few days at a city dock at the canal starting point to take time to visit places like Roosevelt’s Hyde Park and the Culinary Institute of America. Thanks, Cindy and Randy!

Yesterday, we went in search of a reliable boatyard repair place. We think (and hope) we have found one. I’ll let you know when we see the results. But reliable boatyards are hard to find – ones that give you a definite date for starting and finishing a job and give you an honest estimate for the cost of the work. This, at a minimum, is what we need. Our experience has been that we cannot simply put Slow Motion in a boatyard and leave, then come back in a week or two and expect the work to have been done properly, or even done! Here again, the squeaky wheel gets the boatyard grease. If you’re not there looking over the shoulders of the boatyard workers, you will be in for a big surprise, when you return to get your boat and pay the bill. Either very little of what you asked to be done was completed, and what was done will cost three times more than the estimate. Or you may be fortunate enough to have the work you wanted completed, but still at three to five times the initial estimate. There is a huge markup on parts – up to 60%. And the boatyards bill around $90 to $95 per hour for the labor. What share the workers get of that amount I don’t know. A good boat repair person is well worth his/her weight in diamonds, or plutonium. Bill, the guy who worked on Slow Motion in Charleston, was a good boat repair person. Actually, he was a great boat repair person. I wanted to take him on as crew for the rest of our journey. But for every Bill, there are nine folks who seem to know how to lure boats into their yards, but don’t know what to do with them once they’re there. We could sure use some more consumer protection in this area. Anyway, I’ll let you know if we have a good experience here in Solomons once we see the results.

In the meantime, the Admiral is at it again, installing a new water pump. He does virtually all of the maintenance work on the boat, and when a part gives out, he finds the exact replacement for it and goes about reading the teeny tiny printed instructions, twenty pages in length, for the installation of the replacement. I could read those instructions over and over and still not have a clue about what to do, because I do not have his background in electrical and plumbing work. Not that the Admiral loves this part of our journey, but he does it without complaint, and when the work is done, he knows it is done right. We have saved hundreds of dollars because of his skills. He claims that work on boats – electrical and plumbing – is completely different from work on houses. But somehow he figures things out and comes up with solutions. I am in awe of his talents. While he installs a new water pump, I don mask and gloves and use a strong smelling anti-corrosive spray to try to clean the white corrosive barnacles off the metal bars on the ceiling of the flying bridge. This is hard work too, but definitely not very skilled. Oh, the Admiral is testing the new water pump. I’ve got to check this out.

Happy Graduation to my neighbor, Olivia! May your windows of opportunity be big and wide!