Friday

May 12th, 2017

The sea's have been pretty rough...here a trawler is plowing through a monster wave...

This was actually posted in the mens bathroom, at the Carpenter Street Salon, with the caption...

"I told you so"

The boys at Carpenter Street Salon, St. Michaels, MD

Replaced both engine fuel filters, cleaned the flame arrestors (air cleaners) and decided to change all 16  spark plugs after pulling one and seeing that the center tip was pretty much gone...

I also noticed, before changing the spark plugs, when I revved either engine to 3000 rpm's and quickly pulled back the throttles that the engines would die...   Not anymore :-)

Our newly acquired friends Larry and Elka Murphy, also loopers...

Super fun people...Elka was born in Germany.

We are standing on Main Street (Tabot Street) in St. Michaels, MD.  This is the only street with sidewalks.

The neighborhood of St. Michaels, MD is more like we expected to see.  Small town, close to the water, narrow roads, and cute little homes.

In the background you can see a few of the homes have been added on to in the rear.  Only direction to go for most.

Notice there are no sidewalks.  

The marina is directly in front of us.  The town directly behind.

These two houses above and below are for rent by the Higgins Marina.

Thursday

May 11, 2017

We left Zahniser's Marina in Solomon, MD today and headed to the beautiful little town of St. Michaels, MD.  The day looked promising at 6:45am, but the weather got ugly very quickly.  We were traveling with two boats that both were able to be driven from the salon with glass windows and windshield wipers.  We only have the ability to drive from the flybridge.  Our flybridge has flexible strata glass, which you can't even put Rain Ex on.  Mike checked his weather apps and noticed a large rain mass approaching quickly, we radioed our friends we were going to get up on plane and go fast.  They said "Go for it!" We arrived in a St. Michaels marina at 10:35.  They arrived at 2:00pm.  We did run into some heavy rain during our drive, but it was a lot easier for us to see other boats and hazards while going fast.  We really ate up the gas, but had a smoother, less tiring ride, than if we had been going trawler speed.

Wednesday

May 10, 2017

We had a second short travel day of ruff weather and spent the night at Buzzrd's Point Marina in Reedville, VA.  Funny how a number of sources stated it was a good stop, "but'  it was Monday so no restaurants were open and no grocery stores for 12 miles.  Ended up cooking.

Tuesday, finally winds died down a bit and we had a good crossing of the Potomac River.  Local sources say the Potomac River has sunk more boats then any other areas of the Chesapeake Bay.   We got into 4 footers but they were pretty much on the nose....and easy to handle...

Joell studying the route.  We do this each day.

After our first uncomfortable day, Elwood went ashore and up on the hillside and wouldn't come down until we offered him a treat...  Guess it was too ruff for him and he was protesting.

Picture of the hillside with Elwood at the top.

We were too far off shore for us to take a good picture of the historical Chesapeake Bay light houses.

Elwood first tried to cosy up to Mike, during the 4' waves.

Mike usually had his hand on Elwood, just removing it for the photo...

Poor little guy...

Joell warned that we shouldn't get too close to to the red warning lines on the map.  Mike and Myron decided to wait for a personal warning from the navy.  

Their blue lights were flashing and they sent us closer to shore, but not less than a mile in.  They had other prohibited areas on shore.

Here is the second navy vessel blocking our way.  There was a third that stayed parallel to us making sure we wouldn't change course and move in too close.

This is a picture of a part of the naval base.  Remember, it is blurry due to the ruff seas.

Six of us had drinks and dinner at Kingfishers.

Okay, with Mike makes six.

Mike ordered blue crab for Joell.  The waitress told us she would show us how to break them open.  She brought Joell a large brown paper mat.  

Mike drew a nice caricature on the mat.

Mike ordered oysters for himself, as an appetizer.

They came very large.

Slid them right down....yummy

Then Joell got her blue crab.  Six very large crab.  The waitress did show us how to break them open. Very complicated.  Needless to say, Joell was the last to finish eating and still had two crab uneaten.  

These things come apart like dissecting an alien...

Mike demonstrated to the others how to open the crab.  

Joell got good at getting the meat out of the legs, but the crab body was too much work for the amount of meat we got out of it.

Sunday

May 7, 2017

We were at Deltaville Boatyard and Marina from Wednesday May 3 untill Sunday May 7.  There was a mini looper Rendezvous being held there for us.  There was no cost to us, but good information was given about traveling the Chesapeake Bay, electronics, electrical issues, engines and even an engine inspection.  A well known looper broker Curtis Stokes sponsored it with the marina. They supplied beer and wine for Thursday night dock tails and they catered Mexican on Cinco de Mayo.  

On the Chesapeake we passed our first, on the water, lighthouse.  Wolf Trap Light is in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay.  Originally it was a lightship.  A ship was stationed in this spot in 1821 as a lightship.  The lighthouse you see above was constructed in 1870.  This lighthouse is no longer in operation.

The lighthouse is for sale for $250,000 if interested...

We found a Lord Nelson Boat here being worked on.... there are only 75 in the registry ...

Most are 37' and some 41'...

True Barnacles on this steel hull...

This has got to slow you down...

Free Oysters???

In 1608 Captain John Smith and 14 men set out on an epic voyage, to explore and map Chesapeake Bay.  For 140 days Smith and his men endured Indian attacks, heat, disease, thirst and starvation, traveling 1700 miles throughout the Bay.  Below is an exact reproduction of Smith's boat.  It is taken out once a month, to maintain its' ability to float.

They had it a little rough, but nothing like the Great Loop...

Mike and Linda are inspecting the John Smith boat.

This is how the Mercury Engines got started...

 Kiekhaefer purchased a factory and worked on all the engines laying around....

F.D. Crockett

One of only two log-bottom buyboats (meaning to accept a fuel powered engine) built exclusively for power.   It was used for 70 years as a working vessel.  In 2005, a descendant of the Smiths, donated her to the Deltaville museum.  This boat marked a change in the way oysters, crabs and watermelon were transported in the Chesapeake.

So, we left Deltavilla Marina, winds were to be 10 mph and we experienced 25 mph with gusts...We were getting hit over the port bow with spray covering our boat....limited visibility and there was no way to see crab pots which will tangle around your props....so we head into the closest anchorage.... Winds are not supposed to lay down till late tomorrow...but we're heading out in it at 7 am tomorrow anyway...but we will NOT be following the lead boat tomorrow...we'll be staying along shore in 20' of water....

We're seeing hundreds of jellyfish here...

We are now at anchor in the Dividing Creek Inlet, off of the Chesapeake Bay.  We are in Dividing Creek.

our anchorage...

closeup..

and right in front of us....