Chester River Cruise

No, it's not a vacation. That became apparent enough this past week. Jim has been putting off rebuilding the marine toilet (head) for a long time but the time had come. It is one of the nastiest jobs anyone could imagine. Can anyone spell hepatitis? Eight years of sludge build-up and probably most of it was still in there. But with only a few parts to spare, the head is now rebuilt and seems to be working better then ever.

We keep busy with an endless variety of other chores. We've done our first grocery shopping since leaving the dock, Jim made a trip up the mast to check the rigging, we've repaired a crack in the leather wheel cover, waxed the sides, polished the winches, swapped the jib for the genoa; seems that there is always something that needs doing on the boat. Of course there is the daily defrocking of the boat to clean up the cat litter and cat hair that gets strewn about the place. This has quickly become a half-hour ritual each morning. And with the limited space, everything seems to take a bit longer.

After sailing to and spending several days in Annapolis, it was decision time. Thursday was breezy out of the west, thus perfect for going either up or down the bay. We eventually chose north and have spent the past several days exploring the Chester River.

While the land surrounding most Eastern Shore rivers is mostly flat in the middle and lower portions of the Chesapeake, the Chester's banks are high and rolling. Typically, there is little development along the river and tributaries and the anchorages are especially scenic. Wildlife still maintains a foothold here as evidenced by the many ospreys, swans, geese and blue herons. There are even a few nice beaches to take a walk.

Getting to and fro is via our inflatable dinghy, aptly named "Waterspot." In essence, this is now our family car. We usually attach a 2 hp motor for longer rides to shore. And as need be, we can deflate and roll the dinghy up and store it below, although it's heavy weighing about 85 lbs and takes up a lot of space.

Yes, we still have two cats. They grow more comfortable with life afloat day by day. But they demonstrate to us that their still cats almost every day; an aborted attempt at walking Atlas on a leash in Annapolis ended up under Fawcett's dumpster! Not a pretty sight with Atlas being mostly a white cat. And they keep getting confused with open hatches vs. closed hatches vs. open hatches with screens (used at night).