Ian arrived on Monday right on time! He took the Amtrak from NYC to Wilmington and then cab to the marina in Delaware City - it was a wonderful way to begin his 5 day visit. After relaxing for a bit and waiting for the current to change, we left - headed on a two hour cruise to Chesapeake City on the C & D canal which connects the Delaware Bay to the Chesapeake Bay. There was ice cream at the shop just next to the dock so at Ian's insistence, I brought a small tub of gelato back for desert. The tugs were throwing quite the waves when they went by in the night (3 or 4 of them) but the waves just served to remind us we were still on a boat :-) After a wonder sunrise (which Ian and I both slept through - only Steve was up and moving) we headed on down Chesapeake Bay.
Our destination was Havre De Grace in Maryland - on the upper shore of the Chesapeake Bay - only 23 miles. It's so nice to now be where we can find anchorages and small towns a few hours away each day instead of all day travel! Steve did start looking for the next night though as we wanted to anchor out so Ian could experience the upper Chesapeake at it's best. As for Ian, he quickly found his favorite spot: on the flybridge of course! He has a sailboat in Vancouver so being so high above the water is a new experience. I told him he will be a converted blow boater before he left us :-) The bay? Flat water again - what a nice day.
The approach to Havre De Grace is quite shallow except for the now flooded Susquehanna River bed so coming in was quite easy as the channel is well marked - no groundings here! Interesting history - again - as this region of the colonies was among the first to be settled. Here is Major General Marquis De Lafayette who named the city after La Harve in France. However, the two cities names are pronounced very differently. Rather than the French (ˌhævər dɨˈɡreɪs) the city government decreed the pronunciation to be Americanized: Hava de Grace (long a). Anyway, there is a duck decoy museum (we didn't go there) and a maritime museum that was very well done - and it had a movie about the voyages John Smith made up and down the Chesapeake looking for the northwest passage (which of course he didn't find!) so a good bonus!
So we are now back in the land of blue crabs, right? Finally, Steve managed to find a crab pot at the West Marine store about a mile from here (along with a fishing/crabbing license) while Ian and I relaxed on the boat. Of course then we found out that we are still in fresh water here (who knew?!) and the crabs are salt water! The Chesapeake doesn't turn salty until below Baltimore. Well, he'll be ready when we finally get there :-)
That was yesterday. Today we woke up with the intention of heading down the bay to the anchorage we picked out but Ian discovered his foot (which was healing nicely from an infection) had gotten worse. Not a good thing - and not something that he thought (or us for that matter) should put off getting looked at. Fortunately before we shoved off for a 6 hour cruise to Baltimore, Steve had the bright idea of "why don't we just drive there - it's only 40 miles from here?" What a brilliant idea! It really should have been mine :-) So Ian is on his way to Vancouver and we await to hear the outcome from him. He and Steve are scheduled to spend 4 weeks on Ian's sailboat cruising the waters around and north of Vancouver ... hopefully they will still be able to go.
Earthquakes and hurricanes: yes, we felt the earthquake as we were on the deck of a restaurant having a late lunch when the deck started shaking. Not as bad as the one we felt when were were in Encinitas a couple of years ago - Steve was sure it was an earthquake - me not so much. After all, how often is there an earthquake on the east coast???
Irene: well, who knows if she'll head this way but we've made the decision to stay right where we are through it all. We can tie the boat off on all 4 corners so should ride any high winds out just fine. Unless of course it really headed RIGHT for us and then we'll pack it out of here. Otherwise, all canvas will come down and we'll enjoy the ride :-)
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