Our aim today was to find a way to spend the morning hours, then break up the rafts as Noon approached in order to motor the 8 miles or so south to Saint Michaels and tie up at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum for a couple of days in this quaint little town.
I awoke at first light to the beautiful colors we have seen before on the Wye River. Crab boats plied their trade and you could hear the birds and occasional fish splashing in the calm waters.
A little earlier, I woke up and first checked our battery levels. Clearly something is wrong with our house battery bank. Voltages are dropping quickly. (I ran the generator twice the evening before to charge up the battery and it only holds charge for a few hours.) When I first came out of the V-berth, the voltage was an alarming 10.1v and soon afterwards I heard the refrigerator click off and the voltage immediately rose to 12.1. I turned off all the DC systems and a few minutes later, the voltage had risen to 12.3.
As we were finishing dinner, it was clear that the expected thunderstorms were heading across the bay for us. We stayed out in the cockpit for as long as we could before heading below to play our Nintendo Switch for the evening.
As I was enjoying this scene, I sat in the cockpit and worked on the previous blog entry.
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| Fridge running (volts, current) |
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| A few seconds after fridge shut off. |
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| a few min after everything shut off. |
So it's a bit of a puzzle... the battery bank seems charged, but it can't seem to handle a load. We are thinking we will skip the last night of anchoring out as I'm worried that we may damage some of the other boat systems if the voltage drops too much.
It turns out that is not the only thing that will be costing us some serious $$$ from this cruise.
I had been looking for a nice calm day to do some drone shots and so during the morning report, I announced that we would send up the drone in a few minutes. People went out on their boats to wave for the photos, and it all went according to plan - at first.
I had some great drone shots of the entire fleet at anchor and of our raft and the one nearby. But for some reason I couldn't get the drone to go farther. I brought it in to troubleshoot and extended the range for it, but it still wouldn't fly out to the last few rafts. So I brought it in again and restarted it.
It started up, connected to the controller, and I hit the launch button and felt the familiar tug as it tried to fly away from my hand. But this time as I tossed it from the stern, it just dropped into the water and sank surprisingly quickly.
Sorry... I would have really liked to share those photos with you but they are in the drone at the bottom of the Wye river not too farm from a mooring ball labeled "Scrimshaw".
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| Vicky took one photo of me flying the drone. (Seen here just to the left of the mast in the distance.) |
So we each took photos of nearby rafts.
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| My photo of Terry and Richard's raft. |
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| Terry's photo of our raft. |
Later in the morning, Bill and Donna organized a hike over on the island in the center of the Wye River. All the participants congregated in their dinghies prior to crossing the river.
We departed a bit before Noon and easily made the trip in a little over an hour. Along the way, we passed several member boats and grabbed some more shots
We timed our departure to ensure there was not an intensive influx of boats at the same time, but unfortunately we all traveled at different speeds and still arrived in clusters. That being said, there was plenty of help for docking even if Josh (The dockmaster) was a bit frazzled.
Unfortunately in the busyness, photos took a back seat.
After both us and Eau de Vie docked, Terry joined us for a first trip to scope out the ice cream place.
I should add that this is the first time for us to dock at the museum. We became members over the winter and at our membership level, overnight docking (at reasonable cost) is an included feature. In our other vacations to Saint Michaels, we stayed across the harbor at St. Michaels Marina.
Later, we all gathered for dinner at The Crab Claw, a local seafood place right outside the museum grounds.
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| Terry's photo of us. |
We walked around the museum grounds briefly after dinner to see where some of the boats were docked.
We should always just play with a young person.
After trying for a while and finally playing a few mini games, we went to bed while the storm raged around us. We were very much "rocked to sleep" Wednesday night.
Thursday
I awoke on Thursday morning at first light as usual. There would be no fancy sunrise this morning as clouds still lingered after last evening's storm. I walked around the deck, then around the museum and then the town, so I'll let the photos tell the story.
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| The northern part of the museum from our foredeck. |
We are docked in slip F1 which is conveniently right next to their pump out station, so now only are pump outs free, they are also convenient.
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| Saint Michaels Marina complex |
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| The main boat wright's shed. |
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| The Patriot in her slip |
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| I always like the gardens on this house. |
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| Our location is right along the Small Boat Shed in the museum complex. |
After my walk, we headed out to breakfast at The Galley.
Later in the morning, the WABC had arranged for guided tours of the museum for our members. We met by "the tree" at the center of the museum campus.
Our tour began over near the Dove, a replica/reproduction/rebuild/restoration... anyway, it's a new build modeled after an old boat. The guide told of her history while we watched riggers work in the background.
Short version: They had built this from scratch over the past few years and recently put her in the water (proud of the fact that there were few leaks). She has two 98 hp diesel engines due to being a USCG inspected vessel (intended to take out schoolchildren on field trips) and just recently had a test with her engines. They were rigging the sails to do some sailing checks in the next few weeks.
This one is the Delaware... seems appropriate (I imagine it leaks).
Then we moved over to the Small Boat Shed
Then onto the Oyster building.
And finally onto the Dove Exhibit.
As you might be able to guess, during the last two buildings, my knees were hurting from standing still so long and I was getting tired. As soon as the tour was finished, I headed back to Seas The Day and started a nap.
Vicky went with Rich and Terry to a tasting at a local distillery and later came back with some rum samples. They joined us for lunch - dumplings - in our cockpit.
Later we joined them along with Bill & Joan (Skylark) and Peter & Gail (Domino) for dinner at Limoncello a very nice Italian restaurant in Saint Michaels. It was evidently a popular choice as we ran across several other groups of folks from our cruise there.
We skipped dessert at Limoncello in favor of stopping at Justine's Ice Cream Parlour which everyone insisted I should try since my stated preference was JoJo's across the street.
I had a nice Bourbon ice cream at Justine's that compared well with my Black Raspberry ice cream at JoJo's. In my mind they are very similar and I'll need to sample a much more representative sampling to adequately put this issue to rest.
After our ice cream, we meandered back to Seas The Day just as the sun was finished setting and proceeded to watch the first of the congressional hearings of the January 6th investigation committee.
Tomorrow, we decided that we were not going to go to the final anchorage because our battery issue weighs heavily and we would like to get home in time to talk to the folks at Gratitude marina. So instead, we will head home to Rock Hall via the Kent Narrows, a distance of 24 miles.
Checking into the bridge details, we know that from last year our mast should clear. The chart lists our bridge clearance at high tide as 65 feet. Catalina list our "Distance from Waterline to Mast Head" as 63.5 feet on the 425 specifications page. High Tide at Kent Narrows tomorrow is at 2:02 PM @ 1.4 ft (well below other high tides that seem to go as high as 2.5 ft.
Summary of Costs
Replacement Drone - TBD
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (Marina) - $212
Crab Claw Restaurant - $104
Limoncello - $116
JoJo's - $20Justine's - $22
Dockhand tips - $20
Total for this portion - $494 (plus TBD for replacement drone)
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