Saturday 8 September
Good morning, Reed Creek!
Other than a quick spot of rain and a mad dash by the captain to pull in all the towels, we had a very peaceful night at our anchorage. We were the only vessel in sight this morning and felt like we had the entire inlet to ourselves.
We had a great south wind and set out planning to sail all day and make it to Havre de Grace by dinner time. We planned a brief midday stop in Rock Hall to fuel up and pump out, but didn’t want to spend much time there. It was the unanimous vote for least favorite stop last year, since the marina is grody and there was nothing to do but walk three miles roundtrip to the grocery store.
This time, though, we went twenty minutes further to dock in Haven Marina on the opposite side of the point, and it was like a different world! We swam in the pool, walked around the gardens, and only just ran out of time to stop by the tiki bar! We all proclaimed it to be Rock Hall: version 2.0.
We had to hightail it back to where we’d docked the Bay Cat when some dark clouds started rolling in. We were thinking we’d get some wind and rain, but within ten minutes it went from clear skies to looking like this:
We scrambled to batten down the hatches and make sure everything was inside and watched the rest of our neighbors doing the same. The rain opened up out of nowhere and quickly turned to hail with 35 knot winds – needless to say, we were very grateful that our captain had made the call to dock instead of anchor out!
The worst of the storm blew past in about twenty minutes, and we spent the rest of the rainy evening feeling quite cozy in the better half of Rock Hall. Bay Cat has a nice open cabin so we all sat around the main table blogging, journaling, drinking wine and GTG, and reading.
And of course, we were dutifully watched over by our guardian angel of the sea. I don’t think we’ve introduced you to the mascot of our sailing voyage:
It’s Cal Ripken, Jr. (the one on the left)!
They were handing out these statues for free at the Orioles game because it was the anniversary of Cal’s record-breaking 2131st game. We originally ended up with a few but quickly pawned them off when we realized that it was really cumbersome carrying a bunch of giant boxes around. We just kept the one, and he has served us well. We pat his head for luck and feel sure no harm can befall us as long as he is perpetually making daring catches on our galley table.
Townes even made him un petit chapeau out of a piece of bacon, and since everybody knows that bacon makes everything better, Cal is now pretty much unstoppable.
TR Quote of the Day:
While having a minor meltdown because his burrito fell apart…
Susannah: “Townes, can’t you just put your burrito back together?”
Townes (sobbing and waving his tortilla in the air): “Yesss, I need some glue!!!”
