On our way...

The two photos are "see ya later" pictures. The one of Bruce shows us as we were leaving the marina for the last time, looking down on the dock where Breaking Away was for the past year. You can see how we were right next to condos. The other photo shows the Kent Narrows bridge, as we were leaving it behind us headed north.

The day started out totally calm, but the wind picked up as the day went on. We left at noon, after doing a few more errands in the morning - like stocking up on beer. The staff at the marina all shook my hand and wished us well, and off we went. We had to do something we had never done yet on a departure, and that was to untie and take along all eight of the tie lines attached to the dock. And,we needed to take the electrical cord and water hose. Wow, is that electrical cord ever heavy!! Sucker feels like it weighs 100 pounds. Both Bruce and I had to share carrying it.

We we headed north, intending to anchor for the night in a little inlet called Worton Creek, the weather forecasts sounded ominous. Thunderstorms headed our way at 35 mph. At that point, the wind had continued to pick up and the swells were hitting us directly abeam (from the side). While I felt the boat would handle the waters safely, we were definitely rocking side-to-side pretty significantly. With a forecast for worse conditions, I decided to stop at the nearest shelter. We'd been out only 2.5 hrs when I headed into Torchester Marina, and tied up for the afternoon/night.

Torchester's heyday was prior to 1962, when there had been a big hotel here and playground for families who came by ferry from Baltimore directly across the bay from here. Now, all that is here is the marina. No town. So, Bruce and I had little to do other than to look at other boats in the marina, some of which are huge luxury yachts. Actually, we did do a project I never got to back at our original marina: We pulled out all 300 feet of anchor chain and sprayed a fluorescent paint on the chain every 30 feet so that when we are anchoring, we have some idea of how much chain we are letting out. There's a formula for how much to let out depending on depth, but it doesn't do much good unless you know how much you are letting out. This painting project was SOOOOOO much easier than it would have been at Lippincott, because we docked at our berth here bow forward. We could just spill the anchor and chain out right onto the dock, and spread it out to our hearts' content. The project went on easily instead of being a huge pain.

Well, it's a beautiful morning here now, completely calm, and we're going to head out and go to Georgetown, the one in Maryland, up the Sassafras River. We'll walk around the town and then try to anchor out tonight near there.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!