Starting to head South

09/28/11

Here we are back in Solomons Island again. We decided to stop here after leaving Cambridge, MD and the MTOA rendezvous. We had a great time in Cambridge. The rendezvous was a great success and very well attended. Over 70 boats and around 200 people showed up and attended a lot of seminars, social gatherings in the evening and some great dinners. We always have a grand time at these events and see a lot of our cruising friends and meet a bunch more.

Elaine getting us registered for the event.
There were around 200 attendees.

The venue at Cambridge is one of our favorites. There is a park that is part of the marina so MTOA erects tents to house all of the events; i.e., seminars, social gatherings, dinners and anything else that they can think of to offer the members.

The town of Cambridge has a really long heritage. In years past it was a "Waterman" town and still has one of the largest crab packing facilities on the Chesapeake Bay. Right now it is trying hard to restore the town which has had a hard time through this recession. There are a lot of businesses struggling and a lot of empty store fronts. It will come back! It's too popular not to.

We have left Cambridge and are starting our trek south. We've stopped once again in Solomons, but will be heading out in a couple of days with our next stop in an anchorage and then on to Deltaville and Regatta Point Marina. We need to see the staff at Waterway Guide and also get our food stores up-to-snuff before really starting to travel every day.

As you know we go to Florida for the winter and spring. It's too cold up here and really nice and warm in FL (usually), and we can't resist the warmth. The distance from where we are now (Solomons, MD) is right around 1,000 miles to Palm Coast, FL where we will leave Diamond Girl for approximately 6 weeks so that we can visit family and friends in CA and OR. The trip takes us through some really delightful areas, and we will keep you up-to-date as to what's happening.

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Bud and Elaine

You can see the park in the background.
Elaine is talking to some new friends.

One of the presenters at a seminar about Cruising the Bahamas.

Traveling the Chesapeake

September 17, 2011

We finally left Solomons Island the 10th of Sept.. We had been there for 6 weeks and were getting anxious to travel again. We really love it when we are on the move.

Docked in a marina waiting for IRENE

Elaine and I left early morning and traveled north on the Bay up to the Choptank River on the Eastern Shore. It's a very large river and has numerous anchorages. Our destination was San Domingo Creek Some people call it the "back door" to St. Michaels, MD. The town boasts of a really nice maritime museum. The docents are in the process of restoring a number of sailing vessels and also sponser several sailboat races.

Entering San Domingo Creek

St. Michaels is a very small upscale town with very large homes on lots of property. The town is loaded with shops and restaurants. We anchored and stayed for several days. A few boats came into the creek to spend time at anchor so we had plenty of other boats around. The dinghy dock is also the local "watermen" dock, so it has a lot of character. Most of the watermen are friendly, but I'm sure that they think we "yachties" are a pain the you know what. But everyone gets along.
Since our MTOA organization is having the annual Northern Rendezvous in Cambridge, MD we moved a  short distance and are here getting ready for the event. The distance from San Domingo to Cambridge is only about 20 miles on the river so we stopped part way here and spent the night in La Trappe Creek which is another creek that has some homes but isn't very developed. It is quite pretty and peaceful.

Stay in touch, and let us know what's happening in your lives.
Bud and Elaine

Beautiful San Domingo Creek

Entering La Trappe Creek off of the Choptank River

Summer 2011

Well believe it or not, we are still in Solomons, MD. We came here to meet our daughter Michelle and her family and after 5 weeks we're still stuck. It hasn't been bad stop, though, as we had an absolutely wonderful time with family and grandkids and have met a bunch of really nice folks.

A Skipjack in Cambridge, MD

The reason we're still here is because we are waiting on batteries for Diamond Girl.  We had to order the batteries (8 golf cart size batteries) because no one had that many in stock. We've been having issues with them for some time and decided that this was a good spot to stop and take care of the problem. Another good thing is that we have gotten a lot of small projects completed and off our list. It seems that there are always projects and something that needs to be done on a boat.
Diamond Girl is in really good condition and is ready for the trip back to Florida. We are anxious to get started. Before we start south we are going to attend a rendezvous for M.T.O.A. in Cambridge, MD, a little town that we have already been to this year. It's a cute little village that is on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. This used to be a major town for the waterman (commercial fisherman) and still has one of the largest crab packing houses in Maryland. It's very active with crabbers and is interesting to watch how they pack and can the crabs.

A small section of the Dismal Swamp

This year we are going to have our friends Terry and Nan meet us in Portsmouth, VA to travel with us for a week or so. We are planning on going back through the Dismal Swamp and show them that area. Right now all of the routes south out of Norfolk, Va are closed because of damage to the locks from Hurricane Irene. But hopefully they will both be open by the end of September.
Speaking of Irene, she was our first hurricane since we've be cruising...and we hope the last. Even though it was considered a small hurricane (catagory one), it still did a lot of damage to several states. North Carolina was where Irene made her first landfall in the U.S. There are still, 6 days later, areas that don't have any electricity and there are several other states that have the same problem.
It's amazing to see all of the trees down. You can't go anywhere without seeing trees laying on the ground. Some of the trees are broken off and a lot of them have been uprooted. One of our dock neighbors showed us a picture of a tree at his house that split right down the middle and then was also uprooted. The root ball was about 4 feet taller than he is.
Fortunately, we didn't have any damage at all. We took all of the canvas off of Diamond Girl, placed her in the center of the slip and tied 10 lines to her. Then we went and stayed in a hotel that is connected to the marina. We kept an eye on the boat part of the night and decided that there really wasn't much we could do so we finally went to bed and tried to escape.
In the morning we found the boat safe and secure along with all of the boats in our marina. There were some pilings that had broken off, but the boaters were able to get the boats involved resecured. We had about 60-mph winds and not very much of a tidal surge. The marina that we are in is about 4 miles off of the Chesapeake Bay and about a mile farther up a creek. It's very well protected and a great place to ride out hurricanes.
Oh, I almost forgot the earthquake!! Just a few days before the hurricane, we had a 5.9 earthquake. Almost unheard of in Maryland. Everyone was wondering "what that was." Well, being the only ones from California and just about the only ones to have experienced an earthquake, we became the go-to people for information. They closed all of the bridges in the area for inspections. We haven't heard of any major damage yet.

The party with entertainment...he's one of the boaters.

Of course, after events like an earthquake and a  hurricane, it calls for a party. Soooo we had a BBQ party Monday night. People from around our marina and some of the other marinas in the area showed up, and we had a great time. One of the best things about cruising is all of the friends that you meet. One of the couples was from Germany (Barbara and Manfred). They had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and have only been in the U.S. for a very short time. They were great and fit right in.
Well, enough rambling for now. Please stay in touch, and let us know what's happening in your lives. Also, don't forget to sign up to be one of our followers. We love to know who is looking at our blog.
The Transients,
Bud and Elaine

Stern lines on the port side

Lines off of the bow

No canvas...ready for IRENE