[Rhodes22-list] weekend cruise Re: so who is sailing this weekend?

Tue Jun 1 15:02:18 EDT 2010

Hi Lee,
We had a great cruise in spite of a few things that could be chalked 
up to the fact that it was our first real sail of the season. We had 
tried to squeeze in an overnight between launch and this weekend but 
it hadn't happened.

We left early Sat. because of the threat of t-storms in the 
afternoon. There was no wind but very little holiday traffic in the 
Chester so we had a lovely motor down the Chester (no powerboat 
wakes), around Hail Point and up the Chester to Langford Creek. Total 
of around 17 or 18 miles. First issue was with the engine which 
changed speeds several times. Finally decided it was the throttle 
cable or linkage because the motor never actually quit and moving the 
cables around seemed to affect it. We were among the first to arrive 
at the anchorage in the East branch of Langford Creek by Cacaway 
Island so we set the anchor and waited for the rest of the Swan Creek 
Sailing Association. No thunderstorms but those dawdlers who left 
later than we did found some wind and had a nice sail. Turned out we 
had a total of 11 boats show up.

Had a nice Happy Hour with our friends from the SCSA. We got to play 
water taxi for a folks in a larger boat who didn't have a dink. We 
rafted up about 6 boats including Fretless on one anchor. Broke up 
the raft for dinner and delivered our passengers back to their boat. 
Found a nice spot to anchor and set about cooking our own dinner. 
That's when we discovered our next problem - we forgot to fill the 
water tank. Luckily, I had 3 gallon-size jugs of drinking water on 
board and some paper plates and we had remembered to fill the 
porta-pottie so we were fine for the weekend.

Had a ham steak, cous cous salad and a green salad for dinner. After 
clean up we discovered our third issue when we tried to light the new 
anchor light. We thought we had taken care of it but we still had a 
short somewhere in the system. Fortunately we still had our old 
hoistable anchor light that we used to use with the Com-Pac 16. We've 
carried it around in case of anchor light problems.

Final problem was also discovered Saturday evening - we had forgotten 
tea bags! Both Fred and I are tea drinkers and while we only drink 
decaffeinated tea, we do like our cup of tea (such as it is) in the 
morning. Luckily I had 5 tea bags in my handbag - ones that I keep 
for meetings and such where there is coffee but no one thinks to 
include decaf tea. We figured we could ration them out through the weekend.

Sat. night was warm but it eventually cooled off and we got a good 
night's sleep. The new pop-top enclosure works well but there are a 
few places bugs can get in. A few extra dish towels stuffed in the 
gaps between the cloth and the boat did well. The new enclosure has 
screened windows on the sides and a screened window in the door. 
Ventilation is pretty good. It has the same size zippers as our old 
PTE and the screened insert that I made for the front of the old one 
looks like it will work even better in the new one with a few adjustments.

Beautiful morning on Sunday. All the SCSA members had differing plans 
for the rest of the weekend so we were on our own. It was very warm 
but there was a breeze so we decided to get a morning sail in before 
stopping for lunch at the Rock Hall Yacht Club (it has a Rock Hall 
address but is actually located on the Chester) where we are members. 
Had a lovely sail and as we were coming back to the RHYC we spied Tom 
Deliberto sailing his R22 Triton wing and wing down the creek. We 
told him we were headed for lunch at the Yacht Club and he said he 
would see us there (he keeps his boat at a marina just around the 
corner from the RHYC and is also a member).

We felt our way into the Yacht Club, it's mostly devoted to dinghy 
racing and is noted for the shallow water and tied up in a very large 
slip. We had to tie docklines together to make it work. They have the 
big slips but they are only about 4 ft deep at low tide. They do have 
a lovely club house with a deck and a pool. There were lots of kids 
in the pool but the water was still pretty cold. Tom found us and we 
had a lovely lunch sitting in the pavilion with Tom and some of his 
kids and grandkids. Tom and family had to head off for other 
activities so we hung around the club a bit after lunch and then 
headed out ourselves.

There was still some breeze so we sailed down and then around in the 
Chester for a while before motoring into Grays Inn Creek for the 
night. Had chicken on the grill with more green salad and cous cous 
salad so there was no heating up the cabin. I'd made both salads at 
home and we had brought the boneless chicken frozen in its marinade 
so the only prep was to put it on the grill and again there was 
almost no clean-up. Lovely sunset. It was very warm but we dug out a 
12 volt fan that we have stashed away and ran that for a while to 
help cool down the cabin after the sun went down.

Again slept well but we got up at sun-up because of the heat. 
Beautiful morning though with a bald eagle perched on tree watching 
as we ate our breakfast. A couple of osprey ganged up on him or her 
and finally the eagle flapped off complaining. There was no wind but 
we decided to motor home rather than wait for a breeze so we wouldn't 
have to unload the boat in the hottest part of the day. Motor 
performed flawlessly all the way home. There was a light breeze but 
it was directly behind us as we headed home so we didn't even try to sail.

We were back at Swan Creek Marina just before noon. It was really 
really hot so while Fred flushed out the outboard, I threw all the 
perishables in the cooler. We left the boat open and took a cartload 
of stuff off the boat and went home for lunch. After lunch (and a bit 
of a cool down) we went back to the boat, took off the rest of our 
gear and buttoned her up properly. We were back home for good by 2 or 2:30.

In spite of the heat and lack of wind (or our poor timing in relation 
to the wind), it was a great weekend. We overnighted in a couple of 
lovely anchorages and spent time with friends - it was a good start 
to the season.

Mary Lou
1991 R22 Fretless
Rock Hall, MD

At 01:09 PM 6/1/2010, you wrote:

>Mary Lou,
>
>Good cruise?  The actual weather was way better than the forecast.  Bet you
>had a little boat traffic near the Narrows.  We made it out yesterday
>afternoon.  Looked for you but assumed you and Fred were already home by
>then.
>
>Lee
>
>
>Mary Lou Troy-2 wrote:
> >
> > We are!
> >
> > Finally got the boat out for its shakedown sail the other day. Had
> > some problems with the furler - note that the halyard stretches some
> > when first raised. All was well once we tightened it. Like the new
> > main with the vertical batten though didn't really have time or wind
> > enough to put it through its paces.
> >
> > We are off tomorrow morning for a club cruise to Langford Creek on
> > the Chester. Taking roughly 20 - 25 nm to go from a point 3 miles
> > from our house to a point 2 miles from the house - you'd have to see
> > a chart to understand. Lee, we'll look for you and wave as we go by
> > on Sat. morning and on our return Mon. morning. Looks like we may be
> > motoring Sat. until we make the turn up the Chester.
> >
> > Have a good weekend all.
> >
> > Mary Lou
> > 1991 R22 Fretless
> > Rock Hall, MD
> >
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