The first REAL EXCURSION!!

What a great day! George, Jan and I cruised about 23 miles up the Chester River to historic Chestertown. It is to the north of our marina, and winds in a northeast direction past farms, mansions, marshes, and wilderness. We walked around the beautiful town (begun in 1706) which had many preserved exquisite homes, churches, and public buildings. Then we returned, for a total trip of 9 hours.

The excursion went off without a hitch! It was exactly as I had imagined this adventure would be, gently meandering along rivers checking out sights and wildlife (birds) with binoculars, enjoying a dockside lunch, visiting an interesting town, and not crashing the boat!! Our avg speed was 8 mph.

The first photo shows Breaking Away tied up at the Chestertown Marina. You can see the inflatable kayaks tied to the upper rails, as well as my bike. The second photo shows George and Jan at our dockside table enjoying the perfect weather and a fabulous seafood lunch. Yesterday they inaugurated the kayaks with a long trip south of the marina to the far reaches of the bay that is too shallow for my boat.

Originally we were going to take this cruise last Friday, but it was too windy. So, we drove to St. Michaels, a popular Chesapeake destination for boaters. It has the Chesapeake Bay Museum, and we (George, Jan, Janet and I) spent all day there enjoying the exhibits to learn about crabbing, oyster harvesting, history, and boat building. Janet returned to Cincinnati yesterday, after which I got lots of little chores done around the boat.

This morning it was windy, but not so bad so we decided to give Chestertown a go. We carefully planned how to depart the berth without getting wind-pushed into the boat or posts next to us, and it worked! The next exciting part was trying out the Garmin chart plotter and auto pilot, and they worked too! It's cool to use the auto pilot to follow the course you plot simply by touching the screen (showing a chart). Once you reach that spot, you just touch a new waypoint ahead on the screen, and sit back and let the auto pilot take you there. This allowed us to relax and enjoy the cruise. No, we did not leave the helm to go make sandwiches! Every now and then we would have run right over a crab cage bouy if I didn't turn off the auto pilot and steer around it.

Anyway, it was a blast and satisfying to have succeeded in realizing the dream -- at least on my first true cruise with Breaking Away. Gradually we're getting the things we need to provision the boat, and I'm learning how to operate it and its equipment and electronics. All right!