AHOY! 2015

It is the end of the 2015 season and we have not posted since 2013.  But, we did have a very lovely 2015 summer of sailing locally in the Chesapeake. Visiting out favorite spots, we enjoyed some really nice sailing. Our usual trip to Annapolis lead to a great show and dinner at Ramshead. A mooring at Zanhizer's in Solomons helped up through a very hot visit by sitting in the pool. St. Michael's from San Domingo Creek was our yearly visit during Labor Day weekend with Killissa, Carol and Rich Hack.
The Choptank River is our favorite area. We have a slip at Cambridge Yacht Basin. There are so many places to anchor that give us great joy. Even our family doctor has a place on the point between Harris Creek and Broad Creek, We dinghied over to see him and his huge re-do project of his house.
Bill had the strong desire to ride out dinghy from La Trappe Creek back to the marina, a six mile trip, to get ice cream. So, we did it. Our dinghy can plane and if the water is calm, we can move at a pretty good clip.
We did get new sails from Precision. We free footed the main and raised the head sail above the pulpit rail. This really increased our speed. We also added luft cars for the head sail. It really helped to set the sails for maximum speed.
So, we really enjoyed this year. No huge trips planned in the future. But, we truly enjoy the Chesapeake Bay. Never get tired of it. The winds never blow the same from moment to moment.
We took a land trip this year. "VEGAS" and Sequoia National Park. It was an experience  being in Las Vegas. Sequoia National Park and King's Canyon were magnificent. Those trees are phenomenal.

Our 2013 sailing season will not be what we had hoped.  Due to Bill having a car accident, our plans for going north have been cancelled and we will not be meeting up with our friends as we had planned.

On Good Friday of this year, we lost our dear friend , John Morrison. We have been sailing with Fran and John (Chautauqua) for more that 10 years. We have been with the  Morrison's from Newport, RI down to the Bahamas and back. We spent so many hours playing dominos, laughing, drinking wine, and laughing alot more.  Our lives will never be the same without sailing along with the Chautauqua. We feel a bit lost without them on the Chesapeake. There is a big hole in our hearts that will take a long time to heal. When we are on the boat, we end up talking about John and reminiscing.  We miss you John, and Fran and Chautauqua.



A new tradition

We started a new tradition for the Deborah Lee. Any time we travel down the C & D Canal, we make Pillsbury Cinnamon Buns. "Nothin feels more like lovin than somethin from the oven"!

Back to Cambridge, Maryland

We left City Island on Tuesday, July 24th. 36 and a half hours later, we landed in Chesapeake City on the C & D Canal. What a ridiculously long ride. We were not doing too bad until we rounded Cape May and pulled up into the Delaware Bay.  The waves were knocking us all over the place. 6 hours later (noon) it began to settle down and we continued up the bay into the C & D Canal. We got a good night sleep that night. The following morning we took a leisurely ride down to Whorten Creek. We needed to decompress and that was the place. We could relax and swim without worrying about nettles.
Friday, July 27th, we made it back to our starting point, Cambridge, Maryland.  We will spend another day at the marina before heading home ot Pa. We will get the boat cleaned up, refill our tanks, get rid of all the salt, and unload all the stuff we have purchased for the kids.

WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!!!!

City Island (7/22-23/2012) & New York City

Our next stop was City Island. There was one really important place we wanted to visit while up here in New York. We took a bus into the city. Then took two trains into Manhatten. After visiting the preview center to get passes, we visited the 9/11 Memorial.                                               

It was pretty spectactular to see it in person. The waterfalls that go into a black square hole is very moving and the names of all of those souls lost  are cut into the stone  framing the entire waterfall. You can see one of names in the picture to the right.

There  is a great deal of security and probably justifiable. The city has been through a great deal. They lost so much of themselves that day. I think we all lost something of ourselves that day.  The city is so congested and there is street work going on, buildings being built. We decided to take a walk on Broad street. It was open and not as closed in. It was a far cry from sitting on a sailboat out in the middle of Long Island Sound. And it is time to get going. We took a picture of the East River as we were going down and also got a nice shoot of the Statue of Liberty. What a site.

                             

Port Jefferson, NY (7/21/2012)

Had a 6 plus hour ride to Port Jefferson, NY. We crossed the Long Island Sound and the wind was directly on our nose again. We really have had to do a whole lot of motoring. This happens when you make plans. We rented another mooring ball and took the launch into town. This place has really become a tourist attraction. There are lots of places to eat and buy stuff. We had a really nice lunch at "Tommy's Place". As with other towns, they have made available to boaters a place to take showers, wash clothes, and just sit and watch tv. They called this building the Annex. It looked really new. This is a far cry from the last time we were here. They were not boater friendly and even trying to tie our dinghy up somewhere was impossible.They only wanted to talk to you if you were staying at the Marina and Spa. Those of us that anchored were not considered "guests" of Port Jefferson docks. Things have certainly changed for the better. Because there are moorings now in the harbor, they really needed to do something for the boater. We saw a Masonic Temple while we were walking in town.