Boats and Politics

During Election season, we see people campaigning for their favorite candidates in many ways. If you have a boat, why not get it in the mix too? Look at this boat in my marina:

I would like to point out that I am not campaigning for or against Jessamy. This candidate is not even in my district.

Make sure you get out and vote today!

Fairlee Bonfire

Fairlee Creek gets pretty quiet after Jellyfish Joel's closes for the season. This makes it the perfect spot for an end of season raft-up and bonfire.

After watching the weather for issues from the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole, we headed out Friday night. While I'm really glad we left, I would not have recommended anyone else venture out in that weather. There were white caps in the Inner Harbor and without the strataglass in place we would have been soaked. We were throwing water over the hard-top once we got out into the Bay.

Since we were the only ones in our group to actually leave Friday night, we figured Fairlee would be dead. We were right, there were only 2 other boats anchored in a spot that has a few hundred anchored boats during the summer months. Unfortunately, one of the boats was already at the beach. The whole purpose of going to Fairlee was a beach bonfire so we pulled up alongside the other boat. I guess I should really say that we struggled to anchor beside them. The wind was whipping and the current was strong. At least the wind was blowing us away from the other boat. After getting the bow anchor set and trying twice to set the stern anchor, Doug got in the zodiac, went to shore, and physically pulled the boat into position using the stern anchor line. It did not look like fun from my viewpoint but you do what you gotta do (or you man the helm while the captain does heavy labor).Once finally situated, we set up our "kitchen" for the night. As we said numerous times that night "there is just something about a campfire that makes you feel like a kid again." Hot dogs and s'mores cooked on long thin branches are a perfect fall dinner.

We were really pleased when the couple on the other boat joined us. We had a great time making new friends around the camp fire. When we said goodnight we made plans to merge our raft-ups in the morning and Doug and I looked forward to making even more new boating friends. People always ask me how we make boating friends. Well, basically it's as organic as the situation this past weekend. We are in the same place and the same time, we have a boat - they have a boat, we discover that we are all nice people, and Ta-Da! new friends are made.

By Saturday night, we had 7 boats rafted up together (3 we already knew and 3 new boats, plus us). We built another bonfire, we drank, we cooked, we made new friends, we talked smack about the upcoming Ravens/Steelers game (great win Ravens!). We also saw a really cool mode of transportation - wouldn't this be fun:

The entrance to Fairlee is a great spot to fish because of the strong current. Doug caught striped bass, catfish, croaker, spot/perch, and even a blue crab.

One tip for those who are unfamiliar with Fairlee Creek - follow your charts VERY CAREFULLY! The entrance into the creek is tight. The areas right outside of the channel are VERY SHALLOW! After all the rain from the tropical storm, it was difficult to see the beach/shoal that became flooded on the starboard side of the entrance. We saw a couple boats with near misses and one sailboat that was lucky that my husband and one other guy in the group are so nice. They had to push him off of the beach.

Trawler Shopping

Doug and I attended Trawler Fest this Sunday in the Inner Harbor. Yes, we are die-hard boat fanatics - we attended a boat show in the rain. We are truly starting to research potential live-aboard boats.

The wonderful thing about trawlers - lots and lots and lots of space!

The not so good thing - they typically go very slow. I don't mean to make fun of trawlers, but when you are accustomed to cruising at 30-35 kt it's difficult to imagine only going 8 kt.

What are we looking for:

*2 1/2 staterooms: one for us, one for guests, and one for storage. Go ahead and laugh, but if we are still working while living on a boat, we can't just live in shorts and t-shirts, we need room for work clothes.

*2 separate living areas: an example is a salon and a helm station with extra seating. We love each other but we also need to be able to get away from each other.

*A decent galley. One of the boats we looked at has a full side-by-side refrigerator!

*A patio: we want an outdoor living space that is close to the water level.

*Ways to go green: how fuel effecient is the boat? is there a potential for solar panels to run the electric?

*Something we can actually afford!!!

We did find three boats of interest. I'm not saying they are in our price range, but one can always hope to win the lottery.

The Fleming 55 Pilothouse Motoryacht

The Manta 44 Powercat. One of the catamaran dealers did mention that we need to consider where we plan on keeping the boat. There are only so many shipyards that can pull a 21 ft beam boat out of the water.

The Maine Cat P-47

Annapolis, again

Annapolis has been a frequent stop for us this year. It's a great city for many, many reasons. These are a couple from today's trip:

1) The view from the top of Main Street.

2) This sign outside of Armadillo's:

Seriously, how can you go wrong at a place that charges less for a margarita than for a hot dog?

Finally, just to show that I'm not the only one that sleeps during our trips, here's my fantastic captain sleeping on the job.

College Football Saturday

Good friends, tasty adult beverages, beautiful weather, and college football - what more could you ask for? I know, how about a bar on the water. So with a crew of 8, we set off for Pusser's in Annapolis. Home of:I don't drink rum (I know that is a blasphemous statement to most boaters) but many of the crew threw a few back.

One quick note about Pusser's. There is a two hour limit on docking along their wall. We chose to get a mooring ball and take the dinghy in so we could stay longer.

It may seem silly, but I have to compliment them for posting the games which would be shown on each TV. So the signs were a little primitive, at least they were useful. How many times have you been to a bar during college football season and spent many precious minutes trying to figure out which TV is showing your team's game?

Boating is such a small world. We ran into 5 other boats that we know while we were in Annapolis. Part of the Labor Day bunch was directly across Ego Alley from us.

The sun sets earlier this time of year so we started the trek back to Baltimore around 4:30. Sirius 90s on 9 is a perfect station for singalongs if you have a bunch of 30-40 year olds on board. This was certainly one of our more lively return trips. Thanks everyone for making the day so much fun!

Trouble in Paradise

After a fabulous day trip on Saturday (more on that in a couple days), Doug returned to the boat on Sunday to clean. He discovered that someone decided to have a little bit of malicious fun on our dock. The straps that hold our dinghy on our swim platform had been cut through. Lucky for us, the zodiac was not punctured and we could find no other damage to our boat. Doug reported the damage to the marina office and was told that ours was not the only boat with issues that evening.

A friend of ours has a sailboat a few slips up. All of his docklines were cut that night. While the boat did float out into the fairway, his powercord and waterhose kept it from damaging other boats. His neighbor found his boat adrift at 3am and was able to secure it before it was damaged.

Through our friend we learned that a Silverton motoryacht on our dock was boarded. The kids (we assume that is who did this) entered his cabin, drank his alcohol, ate his food, and left everything a mess. One more boater was on his boat after midnight when he heard someone board his boat. The trespassers were scared off when he coughed.

Our boat is on a gated dock. We don't know how these kids got on the dock, nor the reasons for the destruction. We are simply grateful that no one was hurt.

We've since communicated with other slip holders on our dock via phone and email. We feel safe at Anchorage Marina but we want everyone to know what happened.

The positive side to all this...we are making more friends on our dock as we share information and collectively vow to watch our surroundings a little more closely. And the moral to the story: sometimes you have to watch your back - even in paradise.

Thursdays on a Monday

In an effort to resist the real world a little longer, we made a lunch stop on Labor Day Monday. Our friends had heard about a place on West River and 4 boats decided to try it out on the way back to our respective home marinas/docks.Thursdays has a lot of outdoor seating and, even better, many slips available for "dock and dine." Hurricane Earl must have called upon his windy friends that day. After a fabulous weekend sans hurricane, the wind picked up just as we pulled up to the restaurant. The dock hand we worked with was great and we got into the slip with minimal trouble. I also have to give a shout out to my fabulous husband and captain, he did a great job manuevering the boat into the slip.

We were immediately seated at a table right along the railing and ordered food while we waited for the other boats in our group. The clam strip appetizer was disappointing - small portion and more breading than clam. My fried shrimp entree made up for it. The shrimp were large enough that the restaurant butterflied them before frying and they were quite tasty.

The problem/benefit (odd combination of words, I know) of being along the railing is that you can watch other boats as they try to dock. After holding our breath as we watched another boat try to dock next to ours in the heavy wind, Doug decided to get up from lunch in order to assist them from the bow of our boat. Even the guy behind me at the bar mentioned that he'd be on his boat helping if he owned ours. Docking is tough - trust me, after 10 years of boating, I'm still a novice - and you want to give boaters time to learn but you also have to protect your property. The boat eventually got in the slip, without hitting ours, and everyone was able to go back to enjoying the sunny day.

This was our first trip up West River and I think we may need to venture back there next season to check it out a little more. But after a couple hours with our friends, the fat lady sang and vacation was over.