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Cruise up the Potomac??
We left this morning (Saturday) and drove down to the marina (23 miles
by road), and got on the boat, cast the lines off, and with some difficulty due to an adverse wind which blew us sideways down the fairway, we motored out of Smith Creek to the Potomac. We decided that since there was predicted to be a NE wind all week (with the exception of tonight) it would be a perfect time to go up the Potomac to D.C., which we've never done. The obvious first stop would be Colonial Beach VA, but we decided to try out the new pier/dock in Leonardtown about a mile and a half from our house. After the difficulty getting out of the marina, we were motor sailing happily along with the jib and main up, and Bob decided to put up the staysail and turn off the engine. What was that terrible racket? Oh S***. The transmission and drive shaft have come apart. Shut off the engine. We are sailing gently up the Potomac with no power. So Bob gets down in the engine compartment and fixes it. Turn the engine back on - seems to work. We sail up Breton Bay and the guy renting kayaks helps us to tie up. Trip was 24 nm After everything is stowed, we start to walk up the hill to town. It is a steep hill. I have to stop 4 or 5 times to catch my breath and wait for my heart to stop pounding. We had dinner at one of our favorite places in town and then walked back down. I didn't have to stop so many times on the way down. I wanted to do the route for tomorrow to Colonial Beach, but the other computer hangs. We have no electricity here and using this one on the 12v system makes it cranky This little park that the town has made on the waterfront is VERY popular. Lots of activity - people walking/strolling and some of them smooching. And also there seems to be a wireless network here. I understand from the marinas that we have booked later on, that this is the last place I will be able to get the internet, so I thought I'd better go ahead and do it. I left my cane at home and also my hat and the thing that holds my glasses on. Bob has left his extra medications. So he walked all the way home and back (about 2 miles). Sunday - Sept 21 Bob says we were on the bottom last night at low tide. The bathrooms were open all night. I tried to start the Toshiba and it refused to boot and would hang. I tried using the older Dell and after a little bit (I was having trouble seeing because my glasses were fogging up), I remembered that the GPS makes the cursor act crazy. So we did without the computer navigation for most of the day. We cast off about 8:15. It took us about a hour and a half to get down to where we could see the newly rebuilt lighthouse on St. Clements Island. We were headed for Colonial Beach which is across on the Virginia side. We had a hard time seeing the Red 2 because at the angle we were approaching, there were no triangles on the side we were looking at. At first I mistook a red truck parked along the waterfront for the marker, and then I saw what turned out to be a red flag hung from someone's balcony. We knew there was a red 2 and then a red 4 down by the entrance channel. Eventually Bob said that he saw the marker by a place where he had seen people coming out, and that was it. We were inside the channel by 12:15, after 20 nm. We knew that the man at the marina had said he would be alone on Sunday and probably would not be able to help us tied up, so we went up to an available dock right at the entrance and a man across the dock in a power boat helped us tie up before he left. He also pointed out the office and the restaurant. After we tied up, we walked over to the office. We met the marina person (name of Bruce) but he was on his way back to the gas dock, so we said we'd pay after lunch. The restaurant there is the Dockside Restaurant and Blue Heron Pub, and they have a sports bar, an inside restaurant and an outside deck. Bob had an oyster po-boy for lunch and I had a Canadian Mountie (which was a chicken breast, Canadian bacon, cheese and BBQ sauce sandwich). It was very messy to eat as a sandwich - BBQ sauce everywhere. After lunch, we walked back toward the boat, but Bruce was still busy, so Bob walked over to the boat and I sat outside the office and waited to pay. A couple from another boat in the marina were walking their two dogs and came by the boat to find out if we were cruisers. They've been over to the Med and down to the Caribbean. I think we were a disappointment to them as we haven't done that much. They had been to the SSCA meeting earlier that day. Later on in the day another couple came by who live across the creek. It seems a long way to go to look at boats. They said that this marina had burned to the ground several years ago - at first the lady thought the explosion noises were from Dalgren, but a friend called and told her to look out her marina. She said boats were burning and they had burned their mooring lines and were floating around burning - like a Viking funeral she said. For dinner, we went back to the restaurant. Bob had a half dozen raw oysters, and asked for a half pound of steamed shrimp and some cole slaw, but they gave him a pound instead. I had crab Norfolk, which came with a salad (a big heap of greens plus two tiny cherry tomatoes and two tiny pieces of cucumber. I ate the tomato and cucumber and a little of the greens. There was also a huge baked potato and some fried zucchini. I had trouble eating it all, although I did have part of a creme brulee for dessert. The wind was calm and the marina was mirror like, but Bob worried all night about how we would get away from the dock because there was an old wooden sailboat in front of us, and at some stages of the tide there is a lot of current in the marina channel. Monday - Sept 21 The boat in front of us left before we did so we had no problem. I could see the Red 4 from where we were in the marina, so all we had to do was turn and go out. We left the marina about 8:15. There were crab pot boats busily laying their traps out. Although when we came in, I could see the Governor Nice Bridge and the Morgantown PEPCO plant with the binoculars, it was a little foggy this morning, and we couldn't see the bridge. As we motored out, I picked out things long the river side of the town - the Riverboat gambling place build over the water (so as to be on the Maryland side), and the new motels were mixed in with turreted Victorian houses. The Colonial Beach water tower presided over the whole. I did wonder what the little stands along the water were for - they looked like watch towers and I wasn't sure if they were lifeguard stand but we later found they were spotting towers for Dahlgren Proving Grounds. We saw the yellow markers which were for the range boat stations. After an hour we could see the bridge and there was a barge with a crane under it. With the binoculars I could see that traffic across the main span was only one way. We passed by the green 33 spider downstream of the bridge and also Dahlgren. On the other side of the bridge, the markers start the numbers over again from #1. The barge (which had a tug next to it and another one standing by) had the spuds up, and apparently this is the Albemarle Barge Boat Station. As we went up to the barge (which was not really under the bridge) it hissed at me several times - a compressor I guess. Going under the bridge was interesting but not stressful. We passed Aqua Land on the other side the Mathias Point green 5 spider. By 11:30 we were passing Indian Head. The wind was on the nose - so much for the predictions - it is just funneling down the river. When the river went around a turn, Bob put up the staysail, but the wind then died to nothing, so he took it down again. We were passed by a tall ship which we later found out was Godspeed from Jamestown on the way to Alexandria. They had no sails up and the passed us like we were standing still - two huge diesels power that boat. Mattawoman Creek was guarded by a flotilla of crab pots. The Potomac has a Cedar Point, a Smith Point, a Maryland Point, and a Sandy Point, just like the Chesapeake. Two little butterflies kept pace with the boat for awhile. A barge came down river pushed by a tug. Soon the burnt out hulk of a barge was on our starboard in Mallows Bay. By two fifteen, we could see Quantico ahead of us. The Godspeed was there ahead of us The girl I talked to on the phone told us that the marina was closed on Monday and the girl said to turn to port and take the spot on the T-head. So we did. We tied up by ourselves because there was no one to help. It wasn't hard as there was little wind. The Toshiba worked perfectly well all day. The folks on Godspeed (who had been there before) gave Bob the bathroom combination and the one to the pedestrian gates. But they gave him the wrong combination to the gate. They were on their way up to Alexandria. Actually the gates are often left open. There is a lot of weed in the water at the marina and there is a bubbler in the slip next to us which we later found out was to try to keep the hydrilla down as it doesn't like flowing water. There is a great blue heron which hangs out down around the outer marina bulkhead and also some terns or skimmers (haven't looked them up to see which). Everyone said there were a lot of restaurants up in town, so about 4:30, we started to walk up and this time I took my cane. Before we went out the gate, Bob decided to see if the combination that he was given was correct, so I stayed inside and he went out and locked the gate behind him and then tried to combination. It didn't work. Some folks from Godspeed came back with a cart full of stuff and the couldn't get in either. Finally a girl from Godspeed on her way to take a shower told us that it was the reverse of the bathhouse combination. After we got out of the dockside gate, we had to walk around the end of the car gate. It looked like low tide as there was a lot of seaweed exposed on the shore. We walked up into town with some of the Godspeed people. We passed Sam's Inn Bar and Grill, the Mason's building, and the Quantico Garden (oriental food). We stopped at the Q'town Grill Deli/Restaurant for dinner. Bob had lasagna and I had the spicy chicken special which had carrots, broccoli and rice. Apparently you can come in to this place and bring your laptop and there is free wi-fi. On the way back to the boat, I stopped at a Hans Christian where I could see a man in the companionway arguing with someone inside, and said "Hi", and the owner of the boat came out and came down to look at our boat. He'd been previously but we were up in town. He said that Joey had set him up with the wi-fi and they didn't know how it was done. His cat came down with him, and stayed around after he left to go to dinner. Bob decided to not set up the DirectTV receiver and just do the digital broadcasts. This turned out to mean that we got 33 channels, but they were all several versions of the same thing. In Colonial Beach, we got the Washington broadcast channels, but here in Quantico we got Baltimore too. So we'd get channel 2 regular broadcast and then 2 Weather broadcast, 4 regular broadcast, 4 weather, and another 4 broadcast of some kind. We didn't get channel 22 though. We couldn't get Monday night football, so we watched Dancing with the Stars. In the evening, I looked at the various weather channels after Bob was asleep, and the channel 5 news said that it was going to be really high winds with gusts to 40 or 50 knots. Weds and Thurs. After I was asleep, I heard the windmill start to work, and I woke Bob up and said I was worried about the wind having picked up. He went on back to sleep. Tuesday: Sept 23 - Bob went up into the cockpit and looked around and said that he didn't see how we could get out of the marina as the wind was blowing directly in the inlet and we were being blown hard up against the pier. So we stayed there Tuesday. I figured out several alternative ideas. We could stay in Quantico until Friday and then go back to Colonial Beach. We could see if we could get up to Washington on Wednesday instead and just be there for one day. But high winds were predicted for Wednesday and Thursday with rain starting Thursday and continuing Friday and into Saturday. Although the winds reported in Quantico were CALM, Bob said that the winds at our mast were 20 gusting to 26 to 30. So we went over to the office and talked to them. Bob got ice and I paid for 2 days (Monday and Tuesday) as I thought that was the minimum that we would be there. We watched as Godspeed got underway. They seemed sure that they would be able to get under the bridge, but Rick (the guy from the Hans Christian) said at lunch time that he heard that the bridge would be opening, so maybe they weren't able to do it. But I haven't heard anything on the TV about it. I thought we might possibly get out early the next morning before the winds picked up, so I called Colonial Beach to see if we could come back there early, but they are closed on Tuesday. Bob cleaned the engine filters and they weren't as dirty as he thought they might be. We had lunch on the boat, and I went over and used the showers (nice showers with a seat in them). The people in the office said that Joey (the Quantico YC CIO) came over for lunch each day and possibly he could get me on the internet. Sure enough, Joey came down and added me to the group so I could do the internet. Which I did happily until suddenly it kicked me off. Joey had given me his card, so I called him, and he came down again in the evening and gave me a text file with the access code, but I didn't need it again. The people in the slip next to us came back from their two days of sailing, and Bob helped them get tied up - they had trouble because of the high winds which we were still having. Since we had watched Martha Stewart's show on all the various ways to cook hot dogs that morning we had hot dogs for dinner. For some reason we couldn't find the second night of Dancing With the Stars on any of the digital channels. I decided that we should try to get out early in the morning and get down to Colonial Beach before the wind really picked up. We also wanted a pump-out but the pumpout slip at Quantico had a big log in it so we thought we might do it in Colonial Beach. We were worried that the holding tank was full, but it wasn't, so maybe it is just a bad joker valve or a clogged vent. Wednesday- Sept 24 Bob woke up really early, and we were both dressed and ready to go at 5:30 am. The wind was calmer and was blowing us away from the dock, and the tide was going out of the marina entrance. Bob backed into the fairway and then powered forward out of the marina entrance and by 6:15, we were underway! It was still dark. Bob asked where to go, and I pointed down the river. That wasn't good enough. I booted up the Toshiba and let it go through it's scandisk routine and it said it had fixed the problem, but I wasn't too sure of it. I set the GPSs so we could follow our previous track down to Colonial Beach. We turned all the instrument lights on. At 6:40 there was light starting in the sky and I took a picture behind us of Quantico in the distance. By 7:30 it was full light, and we had turned off all the instrument lights and the running light and were down by Indian Head. I called the marina at 8 and they weren't open until 9, so I called back then. I asked if we could have a pumpout and she said that would be OK and she would look up our slip assignment. I saw a big bird on one of the ATONs - bigger than the gulls that are usually there. I thought it might be an osprey, so I took the binoculars and looked - no brown eye stripe. It was a bald eagle. Which flew off before I got a picture :-( The Toshiba tanked again, so I turned it off. The wind really picked up and Bob had the sails up and we were doing 7+ knots under power and sail. We were down to Pope's Creek by 9:30. It was close to 10 when we got to the 301 bridge - there was a sailboat there which was dancing around under the bridge. When they got up to us, we saw that they had "Voyage for Cleaner Energy" painted on the side. After we got to the other side, someone came up on the radio for the southbound sailboat at the 301 bridge, so I answered. It turned out to be the Dahlgren range boat, and they asked us go over to the red 30 and red 32 and then to head for Swan's Point before we crossed to Colonial Beach. At first when the range boat came up I thought he was the other sailboat, but he was much too polite for that Anyway, we saw R30 and 32 on the chart - now to find them in person. On the chart they marked a very shallow 3 foot shoal. I didn't want to cross there. But Bob said we should cross to the left of them. The wind was also REALLY picking up to 26 knots or better and the boat was heeling. That made Bob happy, but me not so much. We eventually went by the R30 on the 'wrong' side of it - i.e. going down the river it should have been on our port side, and wen passed on the starboard. Note to Skip - I did that 'wrong side' of the red marker coming out of a river and our guest down in the cabin also fell and hit her head. It was a REALLY quick stop. I remembered that and didn't want to repeat it. Then we headed for Swan Point. Bob had me steer into the wind to take in the jib, but it was wrapped so tight that he didn't have the lines around it like usual. He took in the staysail. Then he tried to depower the main by putting it way out to the side so it wouldn't heel the boat as much. Eventually he had to have me steer again so he could take the main in. In the excitement, I forgot which way to steer to come into the wind but not go through it, which didn't make him very happy. After we got all the sails in, we were really rocking and rolling. We crossed at Swans Point, and AGAIN couldn't find the Red 2. When we did find it we saw again that it had room for about 8 red triangles and there were only two. Bob put the lines out but he said we were GOING to tie up port side to the dock and so he did not put out lines on the starboard side. Big mistake. I called the marina on the radio about 11:30 - no answer. I tried on the phone - no answer. As we came in to the dock, we saw that the huge boat Miss Ann was taking on fuel from a Texaco truck, and they were blocking the pump-out dock. So Bob figured that he'd go where we had been before, but he wanted port side tie so we would be pointing out the inlet. But because of the wind, he couldn't get the boat to turn around to port. So NOW he wanted me to take the lines from the port side and put them on the starboard side. RIGHT. I yelled at a man with a bike on the walkway HELP and he came over and took my bow line. Bob was jumping on and off the boat. He was really ****ed. But we DID get tied up and he put us on the end of the dock so that no one would be in front of us to worry about. Bob was annoyed, and I was REALLY ****ed that the marina couldn't have anyone come and help us. They all went to lunch together. There's no internet anywhere in Colonial Beach except in the library, which is where I am now. We rented a golf cart. Bob wants to go to dinner, so I'll take him back to the boat. |
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