I enjoyed reading your trek up the Potomac and would like to hear about the rest of the trip

wrote:

I enjoyed reading your trek up the Potomac and would like to hear about the rest of the trip


I am currently on a cruise on a cruise ship in South America.

I wrote the exciting part already, but FWIW, here is the rest of it.

We had docked without help in Colonial Beach and I was annoyed.

When the office lady came back, she said she had phoned my cell phone
and left a message about the pump out slip. Which mollified me
somewhat, but I still don't see why, when I told her that we would be
there between 11 and 12, everyone decided to go to lunch at the same
time at 11:30. She remarked that I must be the first person who
arrived at the time that I had said I would. I paid for 3 days,
planning to leave Saturday because it was predicted to be really windy
Thursday and to start to rain, and to rain all day on Friday.

I decided I wanted to rent a golf cart and see what there was to see
in Colonial Beach. There's a trolley in the season, but not at this
time of year. The office lady called for me, and they came and picked
us up and gave us a gas golf cart with rain curtains. I signed for
it. Bob didn't think much of the idea as he said we could rent a car
for a week for that price ($61/day).

We got the car for Weds and Thurs and they waived the $15 overnight
fee and gave us $10 discount for the rental not being on the weekend.
I figured I could see what I could on Wednesday when it wasn't
raining, and then Thursday before the rain started, and then we could
go to lunch and dinner on Thursday and just eat at the marina on
Friday.

After we got the cart, I drove it across the street to Fat Freda's
(Best Sandwiches on the Beach). [The marina restaurant isn't open
until 3 on Weds.] Bob had a pulled pork sandwich and I had the special
which was the chicken cranberry chutney salad. ($6.99). After lunch,
I made Bob drive. The cart would lurch wildly and backfire if you
tried to drive it slowly, so you had to put your foot down. Sometimes
it would also backfire at stop signs. The turn signals did not
cancel, so you had to be careful not to leave them on all night.

We went by the museum (which is only open Sat and Sun but is free),
and along Monroe Bay Ave. to the marina. Monroe Bay is the inlet that
goes into the middle of Colonial Beach. Then we (or at least I) had a
nap because we got up so early in the morning. Bob also installed
the direct TV receiver.

At about 4:30 we went out again to find a place to each dinner, and we
drove along the Potomac side. I had picked out some things to see,
and restaurants to find. First we went by Bell House which is now a
bed and breakfast. It used to be where Alexander Graham Bell spent
his summers as a child.

We drove over most of the town. There were some places where only
golf carts and bicycles were allowed - no cars. I was looking for
churches and cemeteries, but there were no cemeteries. We passed a
little house with two huge (4 feet high) Fu Dogs, and I missed getting
a photo of them. We saw the Post Office, Lenny's Restaurant (out of
business), the American Legion Hall, the Hunan Dinner (Chinese), and
debated between going to the Riverboat on the Potomac (off track
betting and a restaurant) or High Tides for dinner. Eventually we
picked High Tides.

We sat by the window, and I watched a little boy playing on the sand.
He was chasing some female mallard ducks. I had a cup of the soup of
the day which was seafood gumbo to start - it was VERY spicy. Bob
also had a cup of soup. We both had virgin pina colas. Bob had a
Fish and Chips Basket (appetizer) $8.99, and I had the coconut shrimp
appetizer $9.99. While we were eating, we saw a lady come ashore in
a kayak - she was a bit wet.

After we ate, we came home and put the side curtains down on the golf
cart went to bed


Thursday morning we were up fairly early. I used the golf cart to go
to the bathrooms which are a bit of a walk. Bob looked at the holding
tanks and said the forward one was full (Bob tends to use that one),
and the aft one was definitely not, but we should use the marina
bathrooms whenever possible.

Whenever I asked where I could do the internet, everyone said the
library. So I tried to call the library but it did not answer at 9 or
at 10. Eventually I called the town hall and she said that on
Thursday, they opened at one and were open until 9 pm. She did not
know whether they had only their own computers or if they had wi-fi.
It started to rain, so I was writing up the previous day's trips on
the boat.

The tides were VERY high and up over the parking lots and into the
streets in a lot of cases. On our floating dock, there is a ramp to a
fixed dock and the ramp goes DOWN to the fixed dock at high tide.

So about 11:30, we put on our rain gear and went out to get lunch. We
saw a restaurant called the Happy Clam yesterday and decided to eat
there. This restaurant was formerly called the Lighthouse. It was
part of, or next to, a seafood store and the Bayside Marina. There
are a lot of marinas along the west side of Monroe Bay but I'm not
sure we could get into them with a 5 foot draft. Bayside is one of
them.

I had hot tea and shrimp salad with hush puppies. Bob had soup and
tuna salad and cole slaw. Then we both wanted coconut cake, but it
apparently hadn't 'set up' yet, so Bob had double chocolate cake and I
had chocolate pie.

We got to the library about a half hour before it opened, and I walked
around town a little bit while we waited. When we got in, they had
BOTH wi-fi and their own computers. Not only that, but if they aren't
open, you can sit outside and still use it. So Bob went back and got
my computer while I worked on their computer. Then he sat and read a
book while I computed. About 5, he said he was tired of reading, so
we went back to the marina, and I dropped him off and went back to the
library.

It was still light when I got back there and I tried to figure out how
to turn on the golf cart lights, but Bob said the switch didn't seem
to work and I couldn't make them turn on with any other switch I tried
either. I did eventually get the emergency flashers to work. I kept
working and sent the previous emails until about 7:30 and then I was
tired. A scout master that was talking to the librarians went out
with me to see if he could figure out the switch but he said the
thought it was broken, but at least the cart was white. He also said
I'd get a ticket for driving without lights.

I set out to drive back to the marina. It was raining lightly and
there are no windshield wipers on the cart so when there were street
lights, they glared off the window and I couldn't see. And when there
weren't street lights I could just barely make out the reflection of
the center line on the road in the dim light of the flashers. I
couldn't tell whether there was water over the road or whether the
road had a drop off either. Nor could I see any road signs. A couple
of times I got out and wiped the window off with my rain gear sleeve,
but it didn't help for long.

So whenever I saw any kind of car headlights, I pulled as far off the
road as I dared and stopped and sat there flashing until the car was
out of sight. I was a bit worried about the police and I wanted to be
a sort of stealth ghost golf cart, but this goal was more or less
thwarted by the golf cart tendency to backfire whenever I slowed down.
Eventually I got back to the marina and parked and locked the cart
(after writing THIS CART HAS NO LIGHTS on the tag on the wheel), and I
put the keys in the marina mailbox.

Friday: We hung around the boat and watched TV. When I booted up
this computer to download pictures none of the USB ports worked. I
finally turned it off and turned back on again and then they worked. I
tried to get the virus definitions to download in the library and they
wouldn't download. So now it wants updates and it can't have them.

Bob washed the waterline down about a foot under water on the dock
side. He says we have to haul the boat after we get back, and the
zippers on the enclosure are deteriorating so we need a whole new
bimini (which is 10 years old), dodger and side curtains. We had the
last of the roast beef for lunch. I tried booting up the Toshiba a
couple of times and once it did and once it didn't.

There is a mute swan in this section of the marina which is eating
stuff off the floats of the floating docks. No one else has come in
to the marina since we got here Weds..

Bob is worried about the possibility of fog tomorrow because outside
of the inlet there are lots of crab pots. If there is wind there
probably won't be fog, but there might be rain.

We went up to eat dinner at the restaurant and this time the salads
were better. Bob had clam chowder and fried oysters with a baked
potato and cole slaw, and I had a ribeye with mashed potatoes. I
brought most of the ribeye home with me as I couldn't eat it all.

Saturday Sept 27

We pulled away from the dock about 8:20. It was calm but cloudy. The
Toshiba would boot and run for a little while, and then freeze and/or
shut down. I got tired of it and finally shut it off. Sometimes
there was sun (9:45 sunny) and then there would be a little rain
(10:45 rain for instance).

The wind was on the nose (basically east or south east depending on
the direction the river was going) and ranged from 16 knots down to 9
knots. We had the main up, but didn't put up any other sails and
didn't shut off the engine. When we got closer to the Chesapeake, the
wind was far enough off the nose to make the boat heel a little bit
even though we weren't really trying to sail.

There were waves and I guess the aft head has a bad joker valve
because when the boat would pitch, stuff would come back into the
toilet from the holding tank. Someone had to go down periodically and
pump it back. I ate my leftover rib-eye for lunch. Bob had tuna
salad.

By 1300 we were opposite Piney Point and this time we saw (almost ran
over) the submarine marker. I did get a better picture of St.
Francis Xavier Chapel on St. George's island. A long time ago, I put
a waypoint into one of the GPSs for the entrance to Smith Creek, so
that's what we headed for. I think it is easier to get back to Smith
Creek without the computer charting when you are coming down the
river, because I could see the marina over the big shoal that comes
out from St. Inigoes neck, and the other way it is completely hidden.
We got back to the marina about 3 and filled up with diesel - 27
gallons, but it is down to $4/gal. Some wind, but the man across the
dock and the guy on the big ketch came over and handed us lines. The
trip was 31.1 nm at an average speed of 4.6 knots (max speed 6.0
knots). Our slower speed was probably due to the wind being on the
nose most of the time.

The range boat Prince was up on the marine railway. Everything was
loaded into the truck and we were out of there by 1600. We stopped on
the way home at Bear Creek Open Pit BBQ and got something for dinner.
I got the special (stuffed ham sandwich), Bob got a sandwich and I
also got a Frito Pie and some cornbread. It cost all of $20.80. When
we got back, the paper was in the paper box, and the postman/woman had
put the weeks mail in a basket on the porch.

When I tried to boot up my newer Dell computer, it would not boot and
said the bios was damaged. So I was on the phone to a tech for about
an hour. I don't know whether it is fixed now or not.