Our First Raft-Up on Luv'n Life IV

Somebody call National Lampoon; I have a new movie for them and it's called Memorial Day. Only Clark Griswold could have seen/heard so many crazy things in one weekend. (Thanks to Elisa's Ring for the movie reference that has stuck in my head since we met up on Saturday.)

I'm going to switch things up a bit this week and write at least three posts about this weekend because there is so much to say.

Let's start with Saturday...

We had hoped to set out on Friday evening but the weather did not cooperate. Wind gusts of 35 mph and 3-4 foot waves would have made for a very choppy ride. Saturday's forecast wasn't much better but we knew we could leave super early and take our time getting to Fairlee Creek. The moon was still up and the sun was just rising when we left the dock:

 

One of the wonderful things about a motoryacht is that the ride is smooth enough to eat breakfast while we are underway.

Yes, that is Cocoa Krispies but the organic, skim milk makes it healthy. Anyone who has been on a cabin cruiser like our previous boats knows that we would be wearing more cereal than we ate if we tried eating while in motion.

After breakfast, Doug and his co-captain settled in for the trip:

Latte vegged-out in that seat for the whole ride. Unfortunately, Tigger got a little seasick and threw up twice on the ride over. At 13-years-old, this boat life may require a bit more of a learning curve for him. Don't worry too much about him though, it wasn't long before he was content on my lap:

We purposefully planned our trip so that we would arrive at Fairlee Creek as close to a slack tide as possible. For my non-boating readers, there is a short window when the water isn't going in or out, therefore there is very little current. Our Carver is big and heavy but the current at Fairlee's entrance can be downright unreasonable. Doug maneuvered her through the cut like a pro and we both let out a sigh of relief.

We quickly learned just how much havoc the weather was going to cause for our fellow boaters. In 2011, we had the misfortune of having a friend's boat get beached in Fairlee Creek. Unfortunately for the boat in this picture, it was already high tide. The wind was so strong that it was pushing the water away from the beach. He wasn't floating again until sometime Sunday.

We also had our radio on as we waited for the arrival of two other boats in our group. A Coast Guard announcement came across with a report of a 32-foot Carver on fire with two people in the water on the North East River. They were asking people to keep an eye out for the boat, contact the Coast Guard with any information, and to assist if possible. There was nothing we could do but listen and hope. But then the radio waves blew up with boats talking back and forth to each other. A group had heard the announcement and feared the boat in distress belonged to their friends. They had tried contacting the boat without success and none of them had a visual on the boat. We listened as they all tried to reassure each other. I could tell they all desperately wanted to help but they couldn't figure out a way without putting themselves in danger. A very tense few minutes went by before one of them got a text saying that the boat in question did belong to their friends but that both people had been rescued.

Both of the boats we were expecting were unable to get to Fairlee on Saturday. Correction - both of the boats we were expecting we unable to get out of their home marina on Saturday. It's very difficult to leave your slip with little to no water under the boat. One unexpected friend showed up but they took a slip in Great Oaks Marina rather than trusting their anchor in the gusty winds.

As of 5pm, there were 32 boats anchored in Fairlee Creek:

Let me repeat the above statement -- there were 32 boats anchored in Fairlee Creek on the Saturday of Memorial Day. This weekend is the unofficial start of boating season on the Chesapeake Bay. There should have been hundreds of boats in the basin with no way for me to get an accurate count. Our anchors were secure and the winds started to die down as the evening started and we prepared to settle in for a quiet night under the stars...