Reveille. 7:-00 am. The coast guard wakes you with the playing of the age old theme on a trumpet. We were up already. Last night when we went to juice up our batteries with the gen it did not work. Scott figured out that the impeller was gone. After much discussion and a lightning storm on the Chesapeake we decided to wait til morning to fix it. It was a gamble being that the batteries would sit for 18 hours or more without charging. So Scott was up at the earliest sun to jump into the engine compartment. Half asleep he tripped on the stairs and whacked his head. I think I chuckled!
We actually love this sleepy little town of Crisfield. Maryland. After having the crabs for the first time last night at the local “best place in town” we have realized crab isn’t for us. With the charm of days of old when the crabbing was at its peak and storefronts have worn over the years we are saying goodbye as we travel out of this amazing little harbour. This is a place where you must make your own fun. There isn’t a lot to entertain you here if you don’t go looking for it.
We head across the Chesapeake with extremely calm winds and the sun shining. As we’re tripping along we hear so much chatter over the radio. The navy is conducting live targeting practice and to stay away from the area known as “whatever they said”. Not knowing the area and all the names of the point sand inlets on the Chesapeake we have no idea exactly where they are. So we keep tripping along like we own the place. Next thing we know we see a navy jet over our heads which catches our eye and, of course, we start taking pictures. Cool plane, drone or whatever it is. Next thing we know we’ve got the Navy on our stern. “Hail to the white, blue Canadian boat at buoy 72”. We don’t even know we are near buoy 72 yet. We’re in the middle of the Bay. No buoys in sight. Scott sees the boat on the AIS on the electronics and the guy says again, Blue hulled boat, something or other. Hummmmm, we’ve now got a big fast moving Navy boat on our stern. Scott talks over the radio to the boat “Transporter” the navy “get away from here” boat where they tell us we need to move north and get to buoy 74. “Okay”, so where’s buoy 74? So now we’re both searching on our electronics, me on the ipad and Scott on his chartplotter, to locate buoy 74. So we alter our course and head further north to get away from our new friends in the Navy.
We are heading Solomon’s Island. A favourite Looper location that we thought we would try out. We head into the marina Solomon’s Island Yacht Center. Big name, not so great marina. Go to Calvert’s across the waterway. So not worth the stop here at Solomons Yacht Centre Marina. The pool isn’t available. I needed to do laundry and although the 3 washers were good there was only 1 of 3 dryers working. The showers were dirty and although there are 3 showers I had to go to 2 of them to find one that wasn’t overflowing with garbage and obviously not been cleaned in awhile. We needed to wash a few things on the boat and the water pressure was terrible. Not many people here so I cannot imagine what it is like if it’s busy. They do have bikes available to head into town. The wifi bandwidth has been scaled back to the point where it drops out or runs so slow that it crashes. All this for New York City pricing. So not worth the stop at this marina.
The town is just waking up after its winter. Boats are still under shrink wrap and the town is just starting its summer. The restaurants, shops and tiki bars align the boardwalk. A cute antique store, ice cream and the best key lime pie this side of Key West is available at Lotus Café. We stop in and order a couple pieces for later tonight. We both agree we like Crisfield much better for its charm and ingenuity.
Tomorrow we head into Annapolis and are thinking of hooking to a mooring ball. Stay tuned for that experience as neither of us have down it before.
