July 30 – October 3, 2010
In Indianapolis, we packed up our rented townhouse and organized our goods in storage, and on August 13th, the moving van pulled away with all of our “land-based” goods. (I now think in terms of Land vs. Water… Home vs. Boat.) Our sons, Heath and Travis drove our truck and jet ski down to Florida and Roger and I followed in my car after the movers left. We moved into our new home in Clearwater and spent a maddening 4 weeks attempting to merge what household goods I hadn’t given away into a house that couldn’t possibly hold all of them. I was certain that I had gotten rid of all but the bare essentials. After living on a boat for an entire year, and living with SO LITTLE by comparison, how hard could it be to downsize into 3150 square feet and a 2-car garage!! I know this downsizing concept is necessary, but I underestimated how difficult it is. It definitely has to happen in stages.
In mid-September, we breathed a sigh of relief when we got back to the boat at the Maryland Yacht Club. Everything was just as we’d left it, with the exception of my beautiful basil and mint plants that had died. Oh well.
We had about 2-1/2 weeks before we would go to Solomon’s Island for the Krogen Rendezvous (Krogen is the manufacturer of our boat, and other Krogenites get together in Solomons once a year for a rendezvous). It was almost Fall, and the weather had finally cooled down. We took a couple of days and went across the Bay to the Eastern Shore of Maryland to Rock Hall. It was so laid-back, partly because it was after Labor Day, but mostly because that’s the way it is there on the eastern shore.
A few days after we returned to our dock at the Maryland Yacht Club, we were under a hurricane watch – Hurricane Nicole. Of course I asked the question, “Roger, do you think we should go to a hotel?”. And of course he answered, “No.” It was a little tenuous because we were on a fixed dock, not a floating dock, which would move up and down with the varying water levels. At about 6 p.m., the dockmaster paid us a visit and said he might need to turn off the power on the docks because the tide was going to be high around midnight and they were expecting the storm surge to be significant. I asked him if he could just wait until Grey’s Anatomy was over. Hey, if I had to ride out another near-hurricane, I didn’t want to miss my show.
It was a bad storm (downgraded to Tropical Storm Nicole) and the water rose so high that most of the docks in the marina were completely submerged. There would be no way to get off your boat, but luckily our dock was a couple of inches away from the water level at high tide. Roger checked our dock lines every ½ hour, raising them on the pilings as the water level rose. He helped our neighbor adjust his lines around 11:30 p.m. I was scared that he was going to slip off the dock and fall in so I kept my eyes on him every second until he got back on our boat. The wind and sheets of rain were fierce. Fortunately, we dodged that bullet once again!
In early October, we left the Maryland Yacht Club behind and went once again to the Eastern Shore – Kent Narrows, in Tilghman Island, MD. The Chesapeake Bay was beautiful – early Fall is the best time to cruise there. There was quite a bit of freighter traffic, so Roger kept us out of the main shipping channel, but on a course parallel to it. We walked around Kent Narrows – there were only a couple of restaurants, but it was very peaceful. We walked a couple of miles to explore and found a nice place for an afternoon coffee – oops, I guess I mean cocktail – break.
Roger got us up before daybreak the next morning because he knew more weather was coming down the Chesapeake Bay and we had a long run to make it to Solomon’s Island that day. About halfway across the bay, the weather and the waves kicked up, but fortunately the wind was on our aft so it wasn’t as bad as the day we came out of Tangier Island. We arrived at Calvert Marina in Solomons and were greeted by an exodus of turbocharged racing boats. We had seen these boats at a boat race in Michigan City, Indiana just before we started the Great Loop in 2009 – they were loud and it was fun to see them again. There were some big bucks floating by us!
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