Anchor Watch!

Fogg Cove, St. Michaels

On the Strand, Oxford

Sometimes it seems like the life of cruising sailors is 90 percent work and worry and 10 percent pure joy. We experienced a good dram of the joy on our trip down to Oxford, on the Eastern Shore, from Dividing Creek on the Wye East River. Even though we had to motor into the wind to clear the river and Eastern Bay, once we were out in the Chesapeake we had a fair wind and were able to finally make sail. For a little while we had a good breeze of about 12 knots and we were scooting along at six and a half to seven knots on a close reach. Bel Canto was in her element, and we were all smiles and high fives.

We anchored in a small bight off the channel in Town Creek at Oxford. There was one other boat, a pretty Hinckley yawl, already in there, so we couldn't anchor exactly where we wanted to. We were closer to some private docks and the shallow part of the bay than we liked, and the anchorage has the reputation of having a slippery bottom, but our new Manson Supreme anchor bit into the mud. Let's see, we're in 8 feet of water, and it's five feet from our bow to the water line. That's 13 feet total, and the right amount of chain to let out is five times that, or 65 feet. As the boat drifts back, I let out the chain. The depth alarm sounds, telling us than we're in less than our optimum eight feet. Depth sounder shows a little over seven. We check the tide, and it seems that we should be OK if Bel Canto swings to the end of her chain. Angie puts the engine in reverse and revs to 2000 rpm. The anchor holds. We're set.

As we were getting squared away and settled, a young couple rowed out to the yawl, waving as they went by. They boarded the yawl, and in a few moments, hauled in their anchor and left the anchorage. Now we had the decision of pulling up our anchor and improving our position or staying put. Out of inertia or laziness or whatever you want to call it, we decided that we were solid where we were. Even though there was a slight drizzle now and then, we decided that it was a good time to visit the village.

Lawn Decoration, Oxford

Oxford has pretty much closed down for the season. We went to a couple of boatyards, looking for lamp oil (our oil lamp does an amazing job of warming up our cabin a bit on these chilly mornings), bought a couple of spare fuel filters, checked at the small grocery store for lamp oil and bought a bag of our favorite Pepperidge Farm chocolate fudge cookies, and later in the day went back for a delicious meal at the Robert Morris Tavern, the only eating place in town that hasn't shut down for the season.

When we returned to Bel Canto, we found that a small cabin cruiser had joined us in the anchorage. She was anchored down wind of us, in the shallower water of the bay. She seemed to be a safe distance away, so we climbed into our snug little quarter berth for the night.

I don't know what caused me to wake up at a quarter after three this morning. Maybe sensing a change in the motion of the boat or hearing the gusts making the wind generator hum. Anyway, I lay there a few moments and then decided I needed to get up and check things out. It felt like the wind was blowing a good 20 knots with gusts to 30 or more. I opened the hatch to the cockpit and looked out. The little cabin cruiser seemed closer than it had the night before. I couldn't tell if it was because we had swung on our chain or the anchor had dragged. I turned on the nav instruments. The depth alarm began going off, and the depth meter showed between 7 and 6 and a half feet of water. It was low tide, so that in itself wasn't alarming, but I had to make sure we were still secure. I put on my longies and a fleece jacket and went out to the cockpit. Off to my right, on the boat's port side, I could see the docks we had been wary of yesterday when we anchored. On my left, on the shore across the bay, was a brightly lit mansion. I drew an imaginary line between them, which passed just aft of Bel Canto. If we reached that line, I'd know that the anchor was dragging and extreme measures were called for. Of course, these things always happen in the middle of night. For a long time I stood with my arms outstretched like a cormorant drying its wings, checking our position.

By this time Angie was up and had put on some warm clothes over her night gown. She started getting things together that we might need if we had to reset the anchor in the dark, specifically a spotlight and the headphones we use for communicating when she is at one end of the boat and I am at the other. As the boat swung back and forth in an arc of about 30 degrees, we increased our distance from the motor yacht, then watched it decrease again. I wasn't sure, as we drew closer, whether the decrease in distance was all because of our boat swinging on a longer anchor chain, or if we were dragging a bit. I started the engine, just in case. We spent a cold hour like this before deciding that we hadn't moved and that it was safe to go back to bed. By this time there was a red glow on the horizon from the morning sun.

Lessons learned: Have everything we might need in a nighttime emergency in a handy spot where we know where it is. This includes gloves for handling the anchor chain, pliers to open the sometimes balky shackle that holds the bridle to the chain, the handheld compass for checking the boat's position against objects on shore--and easy-to-don warm clothes!

Angie: I'm sitting in the quarter berth with a winter jacket and a hot water bottle getting warm after last night's excitement. I kept the hot water bottle and Jim from our last boat, Escapade. I also kept the 33 lb. Bruce anchor which I bought for myself. This time around, I insisted on buying a new one, either a Rocna or a Manson, although just about everybody tried to talk me out of it, and I'm glad that I did. I don't think this is how most people imagine our lives, but this is just another aspect of boat life. Where are those white sandy beaches, palm trees, and rum drinks?

Heading South! (poco a poco)

Wye River, Thursday, October 17

Yesterday morning we dropped our mooring pennant, motored over to the fuel dock to fill our fuel and water tanks, and headed out of Back Creek for good--or at least until next year (knock on wood). All the little projects which seemed to be threatening to keep us in Annapolis forever were finally completed. The part for the fuel gauge which had been misrouted to Shanghai had arrived and been installed. The plow anchor had been swapped out for a Manson Supreme. And two big ones to add to our creature comforts. While we were waiting for parts to arrive, we endured three days of the miserable cold and rainy weather, which prompted us to ask Ted to show us how the diesel stove worked. Of course, none of the original equipment on Bel Canto initially works quite the way it is supposed to. Ted decided that the electric fuel pump for the stove needed to be replaced.  After Jim bought the pump, we discovered that we needed a pressure reducing regulator (we sure could have used one of these last summer!), so that held us up another day. But Ted got it all hooked up, and now we are set to be warm and comfy no matter the weather. And the second big one. After disassembling and rebuilding, with Ted's help, the hand pump for the manual head (that's the toilet, if you don't already know), Jim gave Angie the gift of a brand new one. If you've only used a modern flush toilet all of your life, you probably can't imagine why Angie was so thrilled with a new pump for the toilet. Now we can flush with confidence.


So now we are anchored in Dividing Creek, on the East Wye River, Eastern Shore of Maryland. We are only about 25 miles from Annapolis, but it is a different world. As we came into the anchorage we were greeted by several great blue herons along the shore line and eagles soaring overhead. This morning flocks of geese, gathering for their flight south along the eastern flyway, lined the shore. We are the only boat in this small tree lined anchorage which could only be more beautiful if the trees, which are just starting to turn, were in full color.

Angie: This is what I dreamed of! Anchored in a beautiful, peaceful spot, the only boat in the anchorage. I remember the good times we had when we sailed Escapade in the North Channel of Lake Huron, the rocky coasts of  Maine and the colorful waters of the Bahamas, and I longed to do it again. My dream has come true.  There is little wind, a mist crawls across the water, and a bald eagle stands guard over us. What a magnificent bird. On the shore a great blue heron perches on a log just enjoying the peacefulness of the morning. The sun peeks out through the clouds, evaporating the water droplets on our cockpit cushions and dinghy. In my mind I am photographing all these visions, but in reality, I am just happy to be in such a beautiful place.

Shanghai?

Almost ready to get out of Annapolis for good and start the long, slow trek down the waterway. Not much more can need fixing aboard Bel Canto, can it? So what happens when I check the gauge to see how much fuel is left in the starboard fuel tank. Empty? Can't be. I open up the tank and stick a measuring stick down into it. At least four inches left. Must be the "tank tender" gauge. We disassemble the tank penetration fitting, which works on a vacuum, and find out that three o-rings are shot. We call the manufacturer in Washington state and order the whole fitting, forty bucks plus forty three for two day shipping so that we can leave by this weekend.

That was Tuesday. By Thursday (today) it still hadn't arrived so Angie went to the UPS site and plugged in the tracking number. According to the tracking, our fitting was sitting in a warehouse in Shanghai. How it got from Washington, via Kentucky, to Shanghai is a mystery. Many more calls to Washington and Lisa, at that end, promises to send us another, which should arrive by Monday. She's as mystified as we are, and as compensation agrees to send us an extra, since we are monitoring four tanks and are sure to need another at some point. Shipping prepaid this time. So we are here at least until Monday, which is not too bad, since the remnants of tropical storm Karen are kicking up a fuss here, causing a nor'easter which is taking its sweet time moving up the coast.

So how are we spending our time while waiting for the weather to improve and our parts to arrive? Well, I just spent one afternoon and the next morning with my head in the head (toilet, that is), first rebuilding (with Ted's help) the pump for the manually operated toilet, because it was leaking, then replacing the whole pump because the rebuilt one still leaked. Not exactly the way that our friends view the life of liveaboard cruising sailors. It turned out that replacing the whole pump would have been cheaper to begin with, considering Ted's fee, and the new one works a whole lot better than the old. That makes Angie very happy.

And since we are held up here for a few more days, we figured that this would be a good time to get our diesel fueled heater working. The forecast of several nights with the weather in the 50's helped us with that decision. In the meantime a baked chicken dinner, garnished with potatoes, onions, garlic, and carrots, cooked in our oven which miraculously works without special attention, is keeping us warm and cozy.

Stay warm and keep on loving one another. That's what keeps this crazy world spinning.

Cruising

September 27

We had hoped, and told everyone, that we were leaving Bert Jabin's Yacht Yard right after Labor Day. We moved aboard the boat on June 8th, and before we knew it the whole summer had passed while we struggled to get the boat ready to sail. We'd get within inches and then we'd discover another problem which would put us yards away from the goal line. Like the manual bilge pump (last resort if the boat was taking on water and the batteries shorted out) needed to be replaced. And the generator, which was so cranky and loud that Angie hated it anyway, was going to cost so much to repair that it wasn't worth while to keep it (I should take note!) We (Ted and his crew, that is) yanked it out.

Ray, one of the crew

Gave us a lot more room for storing food and water. And the windlass, that we already told you about. Ted machined the faces on the brake, installed a new switch, and built new bow rollers for us, all of which should make anchoring a lot easier and safer.

But finally, on Wednesday, September 25, 2013, we took aboard all of our docklines, and with Ted and two other friends, Gord and Karen from Dancing in the Wind, giving a hand, we eased out of the slip for the last time.

Ted giving a hand off

The first leg of out journey was a short one, about 12 miles down the Bay to the Rhode River, where we are attending South Seas Cruising Association gam, a big social event built around a series of seminars on all aspects of the cruising life. Most of the sailors here are heading south like we are, either for the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands, and many of them have been doing that for 20 or more years, so we should learn a lot from them. It's a great sight in the evening to look out over the anchorage where about fifty other boats, mostly sail but a few trawlers, are anchored and see the anchor lights, like a constellation of planets, over the water. Anchoring, by the way, went off without a hitch, with Angie doing a great job bringing the boat to a halt at just the right moment and then backing down to set the anchor.

The Old Man at the helm

I must admit that I get a little nervous when I think about the trip ahead. We planned on the whole summer to get used to handling the boat cruising around the Chesapeake.
But we do get most of the month of October, a beautiful time for cruising the Chesapeake with the trees turning color and the ducks and geese on the flyway south, before we head down the Intracoastal Waterway. That journey, stretching over a thousand miles from Norfolk, Virginia, to whatever spot in Florida we choose for our hopping off place to the Bahamas, takes a couple of months. And though most of it is motoring down canals, and rivers, there are some bays where you can sail. And lots of practice anchoring along the way. There are also places where you can "go outside" for a day trip or overnighter on the ocean before coming back on the waterway. Doing that depends on finding safe inlets along with a safe "weather window" for the trip. I think I'd like to do that, but we'll see.

October 4

After the gam we went over to St. Michaels, a picturesque little fishing village and tourist destination on the Eastern Shore, for a couple of days. No wind so we had to motor all of the way. Well, I said we learned some anchoring techniques at the gam. We got lots of practice. First we decided to anchor in a little bight that called Dobbs Bay.

With Angie at the helm, we got the anchor set real well and had just got really relaxed when a guy came out on a big motor yacht and asked us to move because he was going to have to come too close to us when he went out later and then came back at night. So we pulled up and headed out to the main harbor, where we anchored just outside the channel. Again, got what I thought was a good set and settled down for the evening.

Tod, measuring mast height

The next evening, though, I decided to give the set a good test. We were interested in finding out how well the plow anchor was holding in the mud, so I started the engine, threw it into reverse, and revved it up. Well, there was a big jolt when the chain tightened, and the anchor came free. I waited a few minutes to let it settle down, tried it more gently again, and it seemed to be holding. I didn't want to pull it out again, and since there wasn't much wind predicted overnight I let it be. I wouldn't have done that, but I've got this great app on the iPad called DragQueen. DragQueen gives an alarm if your anchor drags and you move out of a radius that you have preset, so I set the alarm, and we went to bed. No problem, no wind. We'd swung 180 degrees but were still sitting pretty much where we started out. When we were ready to go and I raised the anchor  I discovered why it hadn't held before.  Our plow had snagged a Danforth anchor that someone had lost or abandoned. Good thing there hadn't been much wind, or we probably would have dragged again. Oh well, that would have been a good test of DragQueen.


October 7

Back in Back Creek, but this time at a mooring, not a slip at Bert Jabin's Yacht Yard. We came into the creek from across the Bay, after two nights at St. Michaels.  We were coming into Annapolis just before the big power boat and sail boat shows were about to begin.

Rob, with wood plaque he made for us

This is the biggest boating event on the East Coast, and Angie, at the helm as we came into the harbor, was nervous about threading her way through all of the boats anchored in the creek for the event. She was even more nervous about handling the boat as we picked up a mooring, something we'd never had a chance to practice with her at the helm. We'd tried this before with me steering, and it hadn't gone too well, partly because when I was calling loudly to Angie, on the bow, so that she could hear my directions, she thought I was yelling at her. So did the skipper of a nearby boat, who came out of his cabin and asked if he could be of any help. Really, I was just yelling so that she could hear me, not yelling AT her. So we decided that it would be better if she were at the helm. And we bought something called the marriage saver, a pair of hands free walkie talkie headsets. It required precision boat handling to stop the boat right at the big mooring ball, close enough for me reach down with a boat hook to grab the line attached to it and secure the boat. But with Angie's practice anchoring at Rhode River and St. Michaels and my much quieter participation, she carried it off perfectly.

We took advantage of being back in Annapolis for a couple of routine appointments to get the new
anchor that Angie has been wanting. Choosing an anchor is a religious act, and no one can agree on which one is the right one. But the one we chose, called the Manson Supreme, one of the "new generation" anchors, seemed at least one step up from our plow. Ted helped us swap it out, not a simple task while we are at a mooring, since the anchor, which weighs 45 pounds, had to be attached to the anchor chain out in front of the bow pulpit. Twenty eight years ago, it was Angie who bought us the 33 pound Bruce anchor, considered the latest, best thing, for Escapade.

Morning at St. Michaels

Free at Last!

Wings!

Thursday before Labor Day was another landmark day for us. With Dave, our rigger, aboard we took Bel Canto out for her first sail. It was a perfect afternoon, blue skies, wispy clouds, and about 10 knots of breeze, just enough to kick up a white cap here and there on the waves. Angie was at the wheel, a big smile on her face, while Dave and I raised the sails and Dave inspected and adjusted the rigging. The boat felt solid under us as she cut throughout the waves, never heeling much more than 10 degrees. On the weekend we took her out into Back Creek a couple of times to practice going REAL SLOW, stopping and backing, and approaching mooring buoys, all maneuvers that look deceptively easy but can be very tricky with a boat the size of Bel Canto, especially if there is any kind of cross wind. Then we took her for a short trip out in the Bay, doing some sailing under genoa (foresail) alone. Angie was at the helm, looking happy, while I handled the sail and figured out the course. We came back home and made an almost perfect docking in our slip. This is where the REAL SLOW is important, since I have to come between two pilings and stop the boat while Angie grabs one of the dock lines and secures it to the boat and then reaches for another with the boat hook. I'm supposed to get the other two while she does that and between the two of us we get the boat controlled before she crashes into the dock or swings over into the boat next to us. This all went very smoothly up to and including the part where I bring the boat into the slip and Angie gets control of the first dock line. Then I'm supposed to put the boat in neutral and grab the opposite line, but somehow I leave her in reverse (used to stop the boat) and she begins backing out of the slip like a balky horse refusing to go into its stall. Luckily there was another boater there to give us a hand, and no damage was done. As they say, "No blood, no foul."

Free at last!

Well, almost. We got up this morning in a beautiful little anchorage not far from Annapolis. Flat water, dead calm, clear blue sky, 64 degrees, a great blue heron decorating one of the docks on the shore. Breakfast of hot coffee, bacon, French toast. We sailed in here yesterday for our first night away from the slip where Bel Canto had been help captive for the last two months. This mini-cruise was a shakedown, both for our ability to handle the boat under sail and for practice anchoring, which we plan to do a lot of while we are cruising. The first part went beautifully. The winds were light, giving us a chance to practice our sail handling without too much stress on us or the boat. Bel Canto cruised along at about 4 knots in the light breeze, and we were delighted. Once in the harbor, our first attempts at setting the anchor failed, and the anchor kept dragging through the mud as we put the boat in reverse and tried to get it to dig in. The type of anchor we are using is called a plow. For a good reason, some people say, because it likes to plow through the bottom, especially if the bottom is muddy. Thirty years ago it was one of the best anchors to be had, but today there are some new designs that are supposed to work better. One of them is called a Spade, and it is supposed to dig into the bottom like one. We think maybe we should get one of those. Anyway, we pulled up the anchor and went looking for a better spot with better holding. Angie was at the helm again, while I was on the bow spewing directions and handling the anchor.

Things did not go so well. The anchor is connected to the boat by a heavy chain that goes over a windlass (for you non-sailors, a specialized winch with teeth used for lowering and raising an anchor). The windlass has an electric motor for raising the anchor, and a brake for lowering. As you let the anchor down you alternately ease and tighten the brake to control its descent. Here is a short version of how it went for us. We chose our spot, and Angie brought the boat to a stop. After the anchor got to a certain depth it stopped, even though I had eased the brake all I could. I gave the chain a tap with the detachable brake handle, and suddenly the chain was speeding out, landing in a big pile on top of the anchor before I could get it stopped. Not good. I started bringing the chain back up. As the chain comes up it passes over the windlass and goes down a hole into the chain locker. Well, most of the chain went where it was supposed to, but then it began piling up around the windlass. When I began letting the chain out again it formed a knot and wouldn't budge. I couldn't get the knot out by pulling it with my hands, but finally pried it free with a big screw driver. Meanwhile Angie was making a big circle with the boat. On our next attempt, the anchor stalled again, and again I tapped it with the brake handle to get it going again, only this time I was quick enough to get the handle back in place. But while doing this, I accidentally stepped on the foot switch used for raising the anchor, and the handle spun backward and jammed against the deck. This time I was able to get it free with a vice grip pliers. Another circle. Finally, exhausted, we got the anchor to hold.

Dinner at Whitehall Bay

The good part of all of this was that Angie got really good at handling the boat in an anchoring situation (lots of practice!), and I learned lots of things not to do with the windlass. We still think that a Spade anchor is a good idea.

One other big disappointment. We came here hoping to explore the creeks off the bay and maybe do some photography. But when we started the outboard motor on the dinghy it ran for a few minutes and then conked out. We're thinking a new outboard. Yamaha makes a nice little two and a half horse power motor that we think would be just right for us. There goes another boat unit!

There are still a few little things that have to be taken care of while we are at Jabin's, like getting an exact measurement of the mast for going under bridges. The mast of a Tayana 42 is supposed to be 64 feet, and the bridges on the ICW are supposed to have a clearance of 65. We want to know exactly where, or rather how tall, we stand. While we get this and a few other little things taken care of, we will try to get out on the Bay a few more times. Then by the middle of the month, we hope to leave Back Creek, begin cruising the Bay, and then, in October, making our way South.

A Side Trip to DC_At the Smithsonian

A Great Day!

Morning on Back Creek

Finally! We disconnected the umbilical cords (the two shore power cables, that is) released our dock lines, and headed for the bay!

We had adapted pretty well to this life on Back Creek. Too well. The longer we sat here at the dock, while Ted and his gang work on getting our problems sorted out, the more apprehensive we became about taking the boat out and actually sailing it. It didn't help that the last time we moved the boat, to have it hauled out for installing some of out new navigational equipment, I managed to turn the wheel the wrong way, driving us into the end of the dock and scraping a bit of paint off the hull. And that was with Ted's whole crew of four guys helping me and Angie handle the boat.

The list of things that should be done before we set sail seems to keep growing just as fast as we check things off. (Sailors we talk to say that at some point you just have to throw off the dock lines and go. You never do run out of things that have to be fixed or could be improved.) So we sit here, and we tell ourselves that there are much worse places to be than sitting on our boat in Back Creek. And the cruising life isn't much different, no matter where your boat happens to be. But the truth is we get a little down spirited about the whole thing, and especially this morning when we got the updated bill from Ted (actually from Ted's office manager) and found that we had just about used all the money we had set aside for refitting the boat. And Ted had taken off for a long weekend without telling us. So we were sort of left hanging without being able to move forward on any projects.

Ted installing the new chart plotter

Fortunately Ted had gotten the engine running reliably (it had been developing an air lock after running twenty minutes or so every time we started it up), and so theoretically we could take advantage of the lull to go out and practice boat handling. But did we dare? Neither one of us quite trusted ourselves to get our sixteen ton ship out of our slip safely, or more important, back into it. Then we had a brainstorm. Tom Yoho. Tom is kind of a jack of all maritime trades who lives on his boat here at Jabin's.  He does deliveries and just about anything else that people want done. (There's a picture of Tom in an earlier blog helping Dave the rigger with the mast.) So I went to find him to see if he would go out with us. He had a diving job to do, cleaning the bottom of a sailboat that, like us, had been sitting at the dock too long, but said he'd be happy to when he was back up from his dive.

New Turk's Heads marking the master spoke

So, finally, with Tom's guidance and help,we threw off our dock lines. We eased the boat out of her slip without incident and spent about an hour pirouetting around mooring buoys, approaching them from all angles, forwards and backwards, with Angie standing on the bow giving directions by mouth and hand signals. Then we headed down the creek and out into the bay. There was a nice breeze and a gentle chop, which Bel Canto plowed through effortlessly. After about a half hour watching the birds and the waves and the boats under sail, we turned around and headed back for the creek, our new chart plotter showing our position and our autohelm guiding the boat when asked to. Back in Back Creek we practiced once more coming up to a buoy and then brought the boat into the slip, with a bit of scuffling for lines but no real problems. Hurrah! a successful outing. Next time . . . we raise the sails!

Blackened Mako shark, avocado stuffed with shrimp, and spinach

Life on Back Creek

We're still at the dock but we've learned to enjoy living in our cabin on the water. We joke about having our vacation cottage on the ocean and talk about how nice it would be to just move it from city to city and experience living in each one for a while, then moving on. We are thinking Beaufort, South Carolina, Charleston, Savannah, St. Augustine. We could take that life for quite a while before we got tired of it.

After weeks of temperatures near 100, a cold front just came in and it's beautiful here. Ted is installing the new pod at the pedestal in the cockpit for all the new navigation instruments--a depth sounder, knot meter, and GPS, along with a new chart plotter that that will show us where we are and what progress we are making against the background of a navigational chart of the the area we are in. That sounds great--and it will be when we are able to leave the dock. We're making progress, but it seems real slow. We keep finding new little things like the manual bilge pump (a back up for when the so-called automatic electric ones fail) doesn't work. We'll get there. Our dinghy motor conked out, so we're debating whether to buy a new one. I met a sailor on another boat who may be able to look at it and diagnose the problem. Ted said he would fix it, but he has other projects to work on; we don't want to distract him. Jim is sanding the bright work on deck, trying to bring it down to bare wood for revarnishing. It seems like an endless task, but Jim regards it as a Zen exercise. I will eventually help him, but it's not my cup of tea. I'm very content sitting in the cabin reading Jane Austen.

I spend a lot of time learning about the boat. I've learned to listen to the a/c to hear if it's running properly, the water pressure pump to know when we are about to run out of water, and the engine, to know when it is about to die because of air leaking into the system. (Chris is supposed to come and fix that problem for us today, but he hasn't shown up yet!) I've also learned to tie a flying bowline with two quick motions of the hands.  Instead of going to the hairdresser or giving myself a pedicure, I make lists of what we need at the marine store and the hardware store. Washers, screws, sandpaper, work lights, tape, battens, inverters.

The inside of the boat is a mess because of the work being done. To get away, we hang out at a couple of different coffee shops in Annapolis and use the WiFi. We bought a hotspot device and internet service from Verizon, but we only get 5 gigabytes a month. Discovered that downloading movies from Netflix ate up too many gigabytes, so I had to quit Netflix, and now we're out of gigs until next month. We go to the movie theater instead. It's not the Michigan Theater, but we've seen a couple of good movies. The Lone Ranger and Red 2 both had us laughing. Tuesday is six dollar movie day, and since boat expenses have put us on a tight budget, we take advantage of that.

We eat like kings and queens. We're discovering every happy hour in Annapolis, and there are some great ones. We can eat dinner on half price hors d'oeuvres and a bottle of wine for less than we used to pay for a snack in Ann Arbor. Stuff like calamari, seafood egg rolls, crispy fried asparagus, lettuce wraps with grouper, Thai dumplings, avocado stuffed with crab. Cheap as it is, we can't afford to do that all of the time. We have been eating lots of seafood that we buy at the market. We'll probably start glowing in the dark from all the mercury. And Jim has learned to fry steaks that are almost as good as the ones he used to grill. There is a great Amish market in a mall not far from from the boat yard where we get good buys on meat and baked goods, and a market in the same mall, which we just discovered today, sort of like a combination of Whole Foods and Arbor Farms, where we got some excellent produce and good coffee.

We're surrounded by wildlife. Not only osprey and cormorants on the creek, but I've seen a fox several times at night time while walking alone to the bath house. Makes me really nervous because he/she stops and looks at me. Jim has never seen it. The other night we saw three river otters lying on a raft where our dock joins the pier. When they saw us, they slid into the water. They swam around looking at us for a few minutes to see if we were going to leave, but when we didn't, they did. And we've seen deer just outside the boatyard fence. This is all kind of strange, since we feel like we are right in the middle of the city.

Even though we've adapted to life in our waterfront houseboat, we are looking forward to the day when we can just take Bel Canto out into the bay and practice our boat handling. Our first experience leaving the slip wasn't auspicious. We had to take the boat just a few hundred yards to be hauled out again to have a through hull replaced and a new transducer installed for the new nav system. Leaving the slip, the boat got pinned against the dock, and Jim turned the wheel the wrong way to free it. The result was a bit of paint scraped off the hull. Ted's response, as usual, was, "We can fix that." There's a lot we have to learn about handling a 16 ton boat with a wheel, compared to our light weight Tartan 30 with a tiller. It's like going from a sports car to a semi-truck.

I watch all the boats leave each day to go day sailing. Hopefully, we'll be among them soon!