Fall has arrived and it's time to head south once again. The leaves are changing and the air is chilly. The siren songs of the turquoise waters, beaches and coral heads of the Caribbean are beckoning. It's time to go!
We spent August and September tied up to a dock in our favorite Chesapeake location, North Point Marina in Rock Hall. Rock Hall is a fairly quiet town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. With the decline of the fishing industry they throw some fun festivals to keep the tourists coming in. We were in town for Pirates Weekend and the Fall Fest this year. Both were a lot of fun.
North Point Marina is a great place for us to settle in and catch up with some friends we haven't seen in a while. Aside from the socializing, we took care of routine maintenance items, brought the sails to a sail loft for some minor repairs and went on a couple of road trips. Quinn played in the pool, worked on his bike riding and took a couple of horseback riding lessons. As it was a very hot August, we were happy to be tied to a dock so we could use our air conditioners all we wanted.
This summer we took a few road trips. While in Charleston, we drove to West Virginia to visit family at Lindsey and Seth Tinkler's wedding. While in Rock Hall, we drove to Chicago for a visit with many of our old friends there and stayed with Frank and Jen Krause's family for several days. Quinn had the opportunity to get reacquainted with his friend Abby and Jen was able to play in a real kitchen. We also took a trip to Delaware to visit with Randy and Susan Williamson, who took us on a tour of Philadelphia's Ben Franklin Museum as well as Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. Longwood is an incredible botanical garden and conservatory founded by a member of the DuPont family on one of their estates. Check out Jen's photos on our web site. If we lived in the area, we'd certainly visit often.
Even with all these cross country road trips, I'm happy to report that we logged many more miles on the water than on the road in the past year. We sailed Mirasol over 4,600 nautical miles during our winter of '09-'10 tour of the Caribbean islands.
A big reason for spending the summer in the Chesapeake is the hope of avoiding hurricanes. So far, so good. Over the past three summers we've had a couple of brushes with tropical storms and one hurricane scare: this year's Class 4 Earl, which happily stayed well offshore as it passed by.
Several days ago, the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole ran right over us in Rock Hall. It was supposed to be just a little breezy and rainy, but it turned out to be a little more than that. There were some peppy gale-force winds for half the day and gusts as high as 52 knots. The winds were out of the South all day and stacked the water up in the north side of the Bay. At low tide Thursday night the docks and parking lot were under water and there was concern of flooding in the marina office come high tide. Luckily, by high tide, the wind had swung around to the North and pushed some water back down the Bay, preventing further flooding. As far as I know, there was no damage to the boats or the marina.
Friday morning, we woke to find the water back down to a reasonable level. As Jen prepared Mirasol for an overnight passage to Norfolk Virginia, I helped clear out some of the cubic yards of debris left behind on the docks and parking lot by the receding tide.
After saying good-bye to our friends, we slipped the lines and left North Point Marina around 11AM. It was a bittersweet departure. While we were itching to start south for another season in the Tropics, this was probably our last summer stay in the Chesapeake. We have found very good friends in North Point Marina and will miss them all.
The trip down the Bay was breezy and a little bouncy. Happily, the wind was on our stern most of the way so the crew was pretty comfortable. The northern half of the Bay was full of debris from the storm and in spite of keeping a close lookout we hit a log with a resounding thump. Fortunately, it caused no damage to Mirasol. She is a sturdy vessel.
We arrived in Norfolk on Saturday morning in time for a children's festival at the waterfront. Quinn had a great time and was pleased that there were no "grown-up things" to do, only "kid stuff". Since then we've been busy visiting the local Naval Museum, Children's Museum and doing some shopping in the downtown mall.
Come Saturday, we'll be ready to head for Charleston as soon as we get a solid 3 day window. The Norfolk Beer Fest on the waterfront is on Friday, so we have plans in the meantime!
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