Day 4, Year 8: Sitting Still
Date: Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Weather: Overcast with Temps in the Low 40’s F; Protected from the Wind
Location: Schaefer’s Marina, C&D Canal, Chesapeake City, MD
Sitting still is not something Mark and I do very well, but we managed to
fill our day of waiting here for the weather to clear with boat tasks that
needed to be done. With the help of the marina staff, we moved Windbird
this morning so we could have water and electricity. I used the water to
spray down the outside of the boat and clean the bottom of the dinghy. It
was in the water all summer and fall except for the three days it was on
land during Hurricane Sandy. Then it was back in the water and hoisted up
on the deck just a few minutes before we left Woods Hole on Sunday morning.
We painted the bottom with a bottom paint last spring and it did the job.
There was absolutely no growth on it. But there was about a three-inch wide
strip adjacent to the painted bottom that was grimy. So I scrubbed that as
well. Then I spent the rest of the day putting away the two bags of canned
goods that I bought last week and just left sitting as I had no time to deal
with it. While I was at it, I reorganized the canned food storage area.
Mark spent a frustrating day trying to find yet another fresh-water leak and
trying to get one of our bilge pumps working. He wasn’t successful on
either count, so those tasks will have to be tackled again on another day.
The weather report says we are getting 25 to 30 knot winds right now but we
are feeling none of that as we are so protected here. It also says the
outside temperature will get down into the 30’s tonight and feel more like
23 degrees F with the wind chill. Our outside thermometer says it is 40
right now, so I’m sure it will get down into the 30’s during the night. Our
little heater is keeping the inside temperature in the 60’s, so we are doing
fine. The same weather report shows that the gusting winds that were
forecast for the Chesapeake Bay tomorrow are not going to happen. It looks
like it should be a great day for sailing down to Annapolis, so we’ll wait
for the marina staff to get here in the morning to help us get off the dock
and head on to the Chesapeake. We are going to move quickly, stopping in
Annapolis tomorrow night, Solomons in the Patuxent River on Friday night, an
anchorage just north of the Rappahannock on Saturday night, and then on to
Norfolk on Sunday to start our trip down the Intracoastal Waterway. So
onward we go.
