Captain's Log: Star Date: May & June 2009

The ponytail is really looking like a pony's tail...


The reason that we had so many free nights in harbor was due to the break-in. As a good will gesture to compensate us for the break-in at the York River Yacht Haven we received free dockage for the duration of our stay after the boat was put in the water. Then while the boat was actually being repaired in Annapolis, we received free dockage compliments of the Annapolis Sail Yard as the authorized Nordic Tug dealer.

Heading to Philadelphia

After our short travel through the C&D Canal we took the Delaware River north to Philadelphia. Neither Captain Mark nor I have ever been to Philly and it is one of the places that we really wanted to visit. Most boaters making the Loop trip do not journey out of the mainstream waterway to get to Philly. Therefore, reaching the city by water makes the experience even more fun as we try to imagine the journey as it was made during the formative years of our country.



The first thing we notice is how wide the Delaware River is…it’s a good thing that this is not the area where General Washington crossed the Delaware as I am not sure he would had made it across on a winter’s day in a storm. Large manufacturing, mostly pharmaceutical plants, line both shorelines. In the past the area was heavily industrialized. Everywhere we look we see huge warehouses and abandoned commercial piers that leave evidence of the manufacturing jobs that have left the area. While many cities have capitalized on reinventing these huge open buildings, it is sadly evident that this has not occurred on either side of the Delaware in Pennsylvania or New Jersey.



The next thing that totally amazes us is the amount of debris floating in the water. This area has received a great deal of rain within the last couple of weeks and the foreign items in the water are the worst that we have ever seen.






It is our plan to stay in Philadelphia for about three weeks. We will be staying at the Philadelphia Marine Center located on the Delaware River immediately beneath the Ben Franklin Bridge. As we take our location under the bridge, we will await Billy Goat Gruff and his two brothers to pass our way as they travel from Philadelphia to Camden, New Jersey.

Hours on the water: 6.5
Nautical miles traveled: 49.2
Number of bridges to be opened: 0
Time spent waiting at bridge: 0
Next Destination: Uncertain at this time
What we are listening to: Stone Cold by David Baldacci
Lesson for the day: I should NOT do lace knitting while drinking wine...
Obligatory knitting report: Purple Lace Shawl for BFF Linda

C&D Canal

Today as we head to Philly, we will begin our travel on the 14-mile long Chesapeake and Delaware Canal which crosses the northern Delaware/Maryland peninsula. Its eastern mouth is on the Delaware River and its western mouth the on Chesapeake Bay at Chesapeake, Maryland. Logically, the name of the canal reflects the names of the two water bodies that it connects. The C&D Canal provides a shortcut of about 300 miles for ship traffic between the Port of Baltimore and northeastern US cities and Europe.



It is one of the few fully sea-level shipping canals in the world. The original C & D Canal was built privately and opened for business in 1829. The depth of the water was 10 feet, had four locks and it carried barges and sailing vessels that were towed by teams of mules from the shore. The canal was purchased by the US Government in 1919 and the canal was excavated and deepened to create a sea-level facility with a channel 12 feet deep and 90 feet wide. The new canal configuration eliminated the locks and was completed in 1927.


In order to be adequately accommodate two ocean going vessels traveling in opposite directions, the canal underwent another expansion during the mid 1970s. At this time the channel depth increased to 35 feet and the channel width was increased to 450 feet.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the C&D C canal is designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering landmark. The Canal is the only major commercial canal in the US that is still in use among those which were built during the heyday of canal building in the early 1800s.

Knitting, Friends & Boating

I could have just as easily entitled this blog entry Boating Knitting Friends or Knitting Boating Friends. My favorite thing about both knitting and boating is how well the two action verbs go together – in fact in my mind, they are inseparable. I can knit when I am not on the boat but I am never without my knitting while onboard. I am busy with my Deck Monkey duties while docking and departing, but then I have all the time in between to knit. There is nothing better in my mind than cruising along, listening to a great audio book and knitting away the day.

Ravelry is a wonderful knitting (and crochet) site which brings together over 300,000 knitters (and crocheters) from around the world. Once inside the Ravelry site one finds hundreds of groups for like-minded folks to join and to share our passions. I can not tell you how excited I was to find a Ravelry Group for Chesapeake Bay Cruisers, but to be honest “they” found me and asked me to join. I could not have been more flattered and joined immediately. The group’s cheerleader is Tanya who keeps the conversational threads lively and fun. She also happens to work in a knitting shop where many knitterly Bay cruisers frequent.

To my delight, Chesapeake City was the perfect place to stop and spend some time. Captain Mark totally indulged me by saying that we could stay as long as I wanted so that I could meet Tanya and spend the day at Vulcan’s Rest. Tanya was such a trooper because while she was not feeling well and had laryngitis, she readily and eagerly agreed to come into Vulcan’s Rest on her day off to spend the day with me. Tanya has the most delightful sense of humor and infectious laugh. Immediately upon meeting shop staff Pat and owner Margaret, I fell in love with the Vulcan’s Rest. We spent the day laughing, chatting while sharing boating and knitting adventures. Tanya and her husband are anxiously awaiting the delivery of a new custom made sailboat which should arrive in August.



Then when I thought the day could not get any better, Tanya invited me to Open Knitting which was to take place that evening. After taking all of my yarn & book purchases back to the Lolligag, Captain Mark rowed ** me back to shore again so that I could attend the evening Open Knitting Group. Everyone was most welcoming and friendly and I had a wonderful time. BUT then the coolest thing happened…as I was leaving and asked if I could have a group photo for my blog, another member of Ravelry introduced herself…Deb. We just laughed in delight to discover that each other was present the whole evening and did not realize who each other were…it just goes to show how well knitters and boaters blend together!



** Captain Mark had to row me to shore in the dinghy because the NEW outboard motor was not starting. It turned out there was an air lock in the fuel line and Mark was able to get it fixed by the time he had to return to shuttle me back to the Lolligag.

Annapolis to Chesapeake City, Maryland

This was our third trip/time spent in Annapolis so that made the leaving even harder. Having spent so much time in and around Annapolis, we quickly came to discover the charm, history and proud tradition of one of America’s oldest cities. So while departing when I was doing my Deck Monkey duties of tidying the lines, fenders and the outside of the boat, I was able to look back upon Annapolis and know that our time spent in Annapolis was truly one of the highlights of this trip.

Our destination today is Chesapeake City, Maryland at the very top of the Chesapeake Bay. I am so pleased to be going to Chesapeake City for several reasons. With the boat doors repaired, it seems like this year’s adventures are finally getting underway – we can head north to see what there is to see. Secondly, our arrival in Chesapeake City will mark our departure from the Chesapeake Bay and officially designate our travel into the C&D Canal, the Delaware River and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean. Thirdly, I am extremely excited to meet in person my cyber Boating/Knitting/Ravelry friend Tanya who works at the knitting shop in Chesapeake City. This event will, I am sure, warrant its own blog story.



As we travel north on the Bay, we note that the waterway narrows from the area where neither shore is visible into a wide winding river-like path. We pass several large ocean going vessels making their way to/from Philly and Wilmington, Delaware.



As we approach Chesapeake City, the first thing that we see is the huge bridge spanning the tip of the Bay and officially (at least to boaters) designating the beginning of the C&D Canal. Captain Mark does an excellent job of navigating the shoal and shallow water which marks the entrance to the CC harbor and anchorage basin. There is a marina, but we opted to anchor in “the basin” during our visit. It has been so long since we have anchored out that I think we both wanted to anchor out just because we could.




On a humorous note, we quickly saw/heard that the anchorage had a boating bully. For some odd reason this guy did not bother or yell at us but he literally chased away (with not very nice language) at least four sail boaters who he claimed were attempting to anchor too close to this boat and/or anchor rode.

Hours on the water: 7.5
Nautical miles traveled: 52.5
Number of bridges to be opened: 0
Time spent waiting at bridge: 0
Next Destination: Chesapeake City, Maryland
What we are listening to: Stone Cold by David Baldacci
Lesson for the day: It feels good to be on our way again
Obligatory knitting report: Brown Striped Sox for Captain Mark

Ten Things I Love About the Chesapeake

Today we will formally leave the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. While I am anxious to travel north, I am very sad to be departing the Chesapeake waters of which I have fallen in love. Since arriving here last July, we have travelled north,south,east and west across as much of the water as possible. We tried to see as much as we could but there are still lots and lots of places that went unseen.

To help me remember the sights, sounds and tastes of this past year I have put together my list of the top ten things I love about the Chesapeake:

# 10 No Spiders for Captain Mark

Isn't this a great picture of no spiders?!


# 9 Lighthouses








# 8 Warships




# 7 Utz Potato Chips




# 6 Washington DC






# 5 Birds of a Feather




# 4 WaWa




# 3 Virginia








# 2 Wonderful Rivers





# 1 Crabs

Bidding Farewell to Annapolis

Monday afternoon we visited with the staff at The Annapolis Sail Yard to thank them for generously allowing us to stay at their dock while the work was being done to repair our boat. The location was convenient to downtown Annapolis and we had the extra treat of being able to drop into the Sail Yard office to kibitz with the staff. The ever delightful and cute as a button Terri was also kind enough to allow me to record her as she left a message for our daughters.





Monday evening as we had our final dinner at The Chart House, Captain Mark and I discussed our plan for getting out of our slip at The Annapolis Sail Yard. The fairway is very narrow and we were not quite, but almost touching the pilings both port and starboard. Mark had done a stellar job of getting us into the slip so I had every confidence that he would be able to get us out as well. So here was our plan: I would position myself aft (with headset in place) to monitor and relay distance while Captain Mark was in charge of monitoring how close we came to other boats off the bow. The plan was that Captain Mark would pull forward into the fairway and take an immediate hard starboard turn, straighten out the Lolligag into the middle of the fairway and then back down the fairway until reaching open water with me providing verbal direction. Backing in or out of the fairway is the only way to maneuver as there is no room to either make a hard port turn out of the slip or spin in the fairway in order to go forward out into open water. Captain Mark did an excellent job of executing his plan. I was calm as a cucumber on the aft deck because I was not able to see how close we came to the boats around us when Mark pulled into the fairway BUT if I had been able to see, I would have seen that we were not even close to the other boats at any time!

Doors Repaired – Kind of…

It seems that this entire boating season thus far has been driven by the stupid break in and I am convinced that the saga will never end. The repairs that were completed in Annapolis were done wonderfully and we sincerely want to commend Danny of the Annapolis Harbor Boatyard for the professional and diligent job he did in completing our repairs.
Bless his heart, he ran into a serious problem with the paint which made it necessary for him to work multiple hours overtime on a Friday evening in order to complete our job. It seems that there was something wrong with the paint and it took many coats and re-dos to satisfy Danny’s perfectionist nature. Just before dark on the Friday evening in question, Danny and Tom were confident that the paint was dry enough to remove the masking and protective plastic and call the job finished.

However, once the protective plastic was removed it was very evident that WE ALL had missed a spot that needed to be repaired next to the door handle on the aft door. I was sick about the situation not because it was missed but because I knew that Danny had worked so hard to make sure that our job was done perfectly and I knew that he was going to be upset when he saw that he had missed this spot. In all fairness to the Annapolis Boat Yard and especially Danny, it was OUR error in not noticing that the area had not been primed and readied well before Danny started to do the actual painting.




We brought the situation to the attention of the AHB and were a little taken aback by their response that this area of repair was NOT part of the original price quote…however since Danny spent more than the estimated number of hours painting due to the contaminated paint and AHB choose not to charge us for the additional hours of Danny’s time, we thought it best to let the situation be as it may and have the additional repair done at the end of this boating season.

Happy Father's Day Captain Mark

This happens to be the 42nd Father's Day that Captain Mark and I have celebrated. Since this is, I think, a major accomplishment I thought it should be celebrated by being treated to breakfast and a shopping adventure. As most of you know, in addition to being a terrific father, Captain Mark was also an accountant in his former life. In fact, he was a cost accountant which by definition and deed means he is "cautious" with his money to say the least.

The last time that I had the chance to see him open his wallet I noticed (after all the moths had flown away) that his wallet was literally falling about at the seams. Add to this an odd conundrum…he also likes to own quality (not cheap) items in life. So for Father’s Day it was decided that we would head to the recently noted Coach Store at a nearby outlet mall.
Captain Mark’s logic, and it is very sound indeed, is that if designer items are purchased at the outlet mall then both his desire for frugality and quality are met in the same transaction. As he was trying out new money clips he was heard mumbling that it was extremely important that he have a money clip that still held tight with only one or two bills in place as this was all that he had left...




PS While at the mall, the Deck Monkey got the following: a new outfit from Chico’s, a summer tote from Coach, candles at the Yankee Candle Store and products from Bath & Body Works.