Sailing with Our Neighbors

We have been trying for years to get our neighbors, Mike & Denise (along with Eliana & Ryan) to come for a day of boating and this weekend was finally the right time.

But before we get to that, we also hosted a group of work friends for an evening cookout on Friday.  Josh and Jennifer were both key people in my early work life at my company - providing much of my training and coaching in the ins and outs of GC software.  Josh and little Josh (who Vicky adopted as a sort of honorary nephew - now not so little) even came along with us on a vacation to China a few years ago.  We had a nice cookout by the shore of our marina (for which we had zero photos) and after sprinting to the boat as squall approached, we had dessert in the cockpit (and later down below when the storm became too much).

Me, Little Josh, Josh, Deniz and Jennifer

On Saturday, Mike and Denise arrived a bit after 10:00 AM for a day of sailing.  They along with their kids, Eliana and Ryan, are our next door neighbors back in Newark and we have been wanting to share a day of sailing with them for some time.  Kid's schedules, summer events and weather have always seemed to keep getting in the way.  We finally scheduled it, and Saturday turned out to be the perfect day to introduce these great people to sailing.  Winds were light - maybe 5 to 6 kts and the sea state was relatively flat despite last night's storms.  

I'll let the photos tell the story.

Eliana is almost 12... the perfect age to want to try all the boating tasks.  She seemed to thoroughly enjoy herself.

Ryan, a rising Junior, just started driving.  

We got out on the bay just in time to pull out the sails and experience the beautiful calm of a day on the water.  Unfortunately, the winds were dying down and after a while I realized we were pulling 1.5 kts of boat speed out of 2.8 kts of wind.  It was time to pull in the sails and decide what was next.  

What was next was foolish question with teenagers on board.  Given the choice of motoring across the bay to see a lighthouse and going to dock and dine at Waterman's... well, the debate was brought to an end once Ryan let Vicky know he was willing to try picking some crabs.  The space at the dock was confirmed with a call to the restaurant and we made a beeline (of sorts... still had to observe the water depths) for the restaurant.

Ryan has some food allergies so an intense consultation with their head chef was called for, and once the green light was given, Ryan dug into a huge platter of steamed clams and then picked two jumbos with Vicky.

Everything was fine as they pulled a leg or two off the crabs, hammered and sucked out the meat.  But then Vicky showed Ryan how to pry the crab apart and pick through the innards... I glanced across the table at Eliana and saw this wonderful look of horrified nauseating disgust at what had become of her dear brother.

I GRABBED my iPhone camera!

But I was too late... that initial look (as though Ryan and Vicky had started butchering a puppy right there on the table and eating it raw) gave way to this more sustainable look of utter disgust at the happenings across the table from her.

Eventually she softened up and decided that her brother and Vicky were still OK people after all.

After our dinner we headed around Gratitude Marina into Swan Creek and docked.  We spent a brief time visiting in the cockpit before a transient boat docked next door and decided to keep their generator running so we retired to the AC below.

There I learned that Eliana had taken a year of chess this past school year so we had to break out a game.  I started strong... capturing her queen in the first few moves, but then got distracted by the conversation, and ended up loosing to her in a rook-king vs queen-king endgame.

Lost in thought!

Shortly after the chess game ended, we bid our neighbors goodbye.  Vicky spent the afternoon napping and I watched theater organ youtube videos.  Vicky woke up just in time for sunset (it turned out it was B-Dock-henge again - the setting sun aligning perfectly with B-Dock at the moment it sets).  We had leftover ice cream from the night before.  A bit later, I chased Scronk (our adopted Great Blue Heron) slowly down B-dock for a photoshoot.

B-Dock-henge

The setting sun lines right up with B-dock tonight.

Scronk walks our docks regularly.

Two bonus photos... I really love the colors and shapes after sunset.

The main goal for Sunday is to empty some tanks and fill up others to be ready for Jie and her friends to come back for another day of sailing next weekend.

Captain Joe's Birthday Party

This was the week of one of the worst heat waves (especially in the central US) we have had.  

I had Thursday and Friday off to work on another project (you'll see more on that later on), so we headed down to Rock Hall in the middle of Friday afternoon, aiming to avoid the hottest part of the day, yet still get there in time for Captain Joe's 50th birthday party.  His wife, Angie, had sent us all invitations a few weeks earlier.  The event was to take place at the picnic tables just off the A/B dock.

We got there to find it was basically a B-Dock party.  Yes, it was hot, but we had a wonderful breeze and with the shade trees, it was pleasant.  Angie had designed a great spread that didn't require either any grilling nor any ice.  There were gallon jugs of rum and a cooler filled with ginger beer so Dark and Stormy was the drink of the evening (I think there was a vodka punch as well).

Captain Gary had returned for the festivities and tagging along with him was Brian Winters (who had sold most of us boats).

The only problem was that there was this one dude who was clearly making moves on Vicky... flashing his smile, etc. ... next thing I look over and she's feeding him... then they absconded away to go play around the kayaks together.

Anyway....

After the party we retired to Seas The Day to first sleep off the Dark and Stormys and then headed to bed for the night.

We originally had plans to have a couple of Vicky's friends from her International Women's Group go sailing with us on Saturday but that fell through due to a twisted ankle and some other issues.  Given the expected heat index, that turned out to be good.

Upon waking up on Saturday morning a quick check of the weather confirmed that the heat index/"real feel" temp was heading north of 95 by mid-morning.  So I went for my sunrise walk, wrote an email to an old colleague and then after breakfast we packed up and headed home.

I was not upset about not being able to sail in this heat.  For the past few weeks i've been working in the background to acquire an old Allen GW4 Theater Organ (I took years of pop organ lessons as a kid) and convert my photo studio sunroom into a nicer space.  It had finally been installed Thursday, so this gave me the weekend to dig into the new instrument.

 

An Excursion on the Sultana

 

We planned this weekend months ago.  Shortly after joining ABCW (America's Boating Club - Wilmington DE section) during the winter, we were faced with the question "Do you want to join us for the Sultana cruise"?  Of course when joining a new club, we said yes and this weekend was the excursion.

The Sultana is a replica of a 1768 Schooner of the same name that was put together back in 1998 by a group of educators.  Our club had a Zoom lecture about this effort during the winter months last year and several members decided to book her for one of the "public" sails.  Primarily, she is used as an education vessel, so local schoolchildren can do a special field trip aboard her to learn about early Chesapeake history.

I'm kind of jealous of kids these days. All I got to do for field trips when that age was go to an old canal tunnel and iron furnace.

We waited until Saturday to go down to Chestertown, since I had sold some of the old studio lighting equipment on eBay and had to ship them out Saturday morning.  We arrived at the Chestertown Marina (which we had visited before) with a few minutes to spare before boarding.

This is one where I'll let the photos tell the story.

It was an interesting trip.  The winds were relatively light and, seriously, I would not have tried to set sail.  But the Sultana carries a huge amount of sail for her size and even with the light winds, they only used the motor to get off the dock and turn downstream, then only occasionally afterwards (if the wind got too light and we were in danger of drifting to the wrong place). The captain did put the engine on for the final portion of the trip when she realized that we needed to get back before a storm.  

Listening to a history lecture

Vicky's photo

Vicky's photo

They also demonstrated how to fire the old deck gun.

We weren't allowed to photograph the actual gunshot as we were all ordered by the captain to put away our cameras and phones and hold our hands over our ears.  

Still, you could FEEL the pressure wave when the gun went off.

The rest of the trip after the gunshot demo was just milling about and chatting with the crew members.  They did open up the space below deck for a brief tour.  I elected not to go down the ladder due to my knees feeling sore (and was shown up by _______, one of our older members, who later climbed down for a look despite having an artificial leg).  Vicky went below and captured a few images.

Vicky's photo

It was eye-opening to watch the docking procedures.  The captain and crew communicated extremely well and we were secure and docked in no time.  

I'm thinking about instituting this "best practice" on Seas The Day - where I scream a command and Vicky needs to clearly call it back and execute it....    

... on second thought, that may not be good for ship's morale. 

(Discretion is sometimes the better part... that's a lesson I keep trying to learn.)

After the Sultana excursion, the ABCW met back at North Point Marina for a cookout.  Storms were approaching and keeping the tablecloths in place proved challenging.  The menu was some nice burgers and brats along with each of us bringing our own side dishes and the occasional shared tidbit.  It was a nice chance to reconnect with the group.

Around 7:00 we headed back to Osprey Point before the storms picked up.  We were able to enjoy an evening in the cockpit and even caught a hazy sunset through the rain.

I took my daily sunrise walk on Sunday morning, but I doubt we will do much more today.  Reports are saying the current 6kt winds are the high for the day with winds expected to drop to 1.6 (gusting to 4!) and neither of us are interested in a hot day of motoring around.