Another fabulous cruise to Chestertown, about 25 miles northeast of here. It is such a quaint historic town, I wanted to return with new partners, Bruce, Lee and Janet (who arrived Thursday night).
Isn't that a great photo of "the boys" as we cruised along the river?? Bruce took the helm for the entire return trip, learning how to program the Garmin and use the auto pilot. He likes it as much as I do.
Another photo shows us filling the fuel tanks for the first time, where the price was $0.53/gal less than it was in Baltimore. The surprise, however, was that it took only 115 gallons. I thought with a 300-gallon tank, and the guage showing 1/3 (and 1/8 when we were in Baltimore before the 30-gallon "insurance"), that we would take at least twice that quantity. So, I need to ask the gang here about that.
The final photo shows how the captain can relax while the first mate is piloting!
I titled this posting Hawthorne High Cougar Cruise because we four HHS grads played Beach Boys music the entire way home - for four hours! And of course they were HHS alumni too. The whole day was wonderful!! We left about 9:30 after the dinghy sales guy dropped by for some paperwork, and it was a slightly breezy, sunny, warm day. After we got the fuel, we ate at the dockside restaurant. We took a photo of Janet and she sent it to her teaching mates with some snooty line about too bad they had to work, and over the afternoon she got her equally snooty comeback replies.
We walked around the town with its Georgian and Victorian homes, its 1706 churches and courthouse, and its Custom House for the agriculture trade this port handled in the 18th century. We departed late - about 4:30, and relaxed for the return cruise past farms and occasional mansions, including the 4-story home modified from two silos sitting side by side. When we got back to the marina here, a strong wind was coming from the south, a new direction for me to maneuver in as I backed Breaking Away into its berth. I did it okay!
There was just enough sunlight to wash down the entire boat to get it clean for this weekend's Bon Voyage Open House (Open Boat). I BBQed salmon on the flybridge BBQ, and Lee and Bruce had veggie burgers. Great ending to the day.
Bruce and I should depart on Tuesday. We need Monday to buy all our dry goods to stock up on for a while. This will be our last time to shop using my car. From now on, we'll need to make do with stores at marinas, what we can carry on the bikes, or if we can borrow a car from a marina. We bought shelves for the "wine cellar" (a large space under the stairs that run down from the main salon area to the forward berths), and we will fill that area with shelf stable foods (so far, mostly beer and wine, but we now need to expand our repertoire). Tomorrow, though, I'm first looking forward to our visitors!! Everything has amazingly come together during the past month. We're ready to begin the adventure!
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