I have some bad feelings about today! We decided to head over to the dock at
Skipjack Marina to pump out and fuel up.
When Chuck raised the anchor and chain, it was caked with tons of
mud. Since we don’t have a wash down
hose (good thing to have), he would raise a few feet of chain and throw a bucket of
water on it, raise more chain, throw another bucket of water on that, etc. It must have taken him 15-20 minutes to clean
the chain and anchor….YUK…before we were free to motor over to the dock. Once there, we were able to pump out, $5,
but the gas attendant said they only
had high speed diesel?? What??
Well here, the nozzle is bigger to allow the diesel to pump twice as
fast for the yachts that take a lot of fuel!
Makes sense I guess, but what about us? We then were directed to Georgetown Boat Basin. Once there, one of the employee’s that had just
finished towing a boat to the fuel dock, motored over to us and then told us
they just ran out of diesel yesterday!!
I knew this wasn’t going to be a good day. :( Neither of us wanted to take off without more
fuel, so we pulled up to an empty dock and Chuck poured diesel into the tank from
one of our 5 gallon cans which had been latched to our boat. This is the first time that we had to use
those cans. They came in handy!!
Our friends took off ahead of us not knowing the trouble we
were having finding fuel….who would have thought? Craig was leading the way and would give our
two sailboats a call every now and then about what he was experiencing. Our plans were to go to Rock Hall Harbor, MD
which is south of where we are now, on the eastern shore. Now remember, we had
to go 11.5 miles up the river and so now we have to go 11.5 miles back down the
river to get to the bay and than another 21.5 miles to the mouth of Rock Hall. On a good day, that’s about 5
hours.
Motoring out of the river, the winds were out of the
SSE. We popped our jib and it gave us
the burst of speed we needed to make up for lost time. The only problem was that the navigable part
of the river snakes around and the wind would be in the right direction, and
then our jib would flog. We finally had to furl the jib. Once we got near the mouth of the river, we
had crab traps to dodge. It
was like a mine field! We were running
close to the shoreline and soon came upon white floats that were designated as
a “crab lane”. Apparently the crabbers
have to keep their traps north of these floats.
That eased our exit from the river a bit.
 |
| Crabber out in the rough waters too! |
As the day progressed past noon and we advanced further
south, the winds and waves increased considerably! They now were calling for small craft
warnings in the afternoon. For
once, weather NOAA was right!! Of course the waves and wind were on our nose
but we still were attempting to make it to Rock Hall. We’ve been in worse conditions on Lake
Erie so all was cool….and then our engine stopped…..just like on the Delaware Bay. Okay, now I’m ready to get sick…but Happy
Hours II started right back up. Whew!! Chuck decided to not run her so hard
again…..he backed her down to 2400 RPM’s.
The only problem now is that we are being overpowered by the winds and
especially the waves. I think we were only going 4 mph and probably less!
At this rate, we’d be
going into an unfamiliar harbor at dusk and we didn’t want to do that. Plus Chuck wanted to change the fuel filter
while he still had some light. We had
just past Fairlee Creek and Worton Creek before that. So we both decided to turn around. Worton Creek is very wide and would be easy
to get into, but the protection from the wind looked much better at Fairlee Creek. However, all the reviews on Active Captain
warned about staying between the markers and then close to the south
shore…almost as though you were going to beach your boat! Since it was so rough, we weren’t sure we
were doing the wise thing. As we got
closer to the their channel, we watched
two boats go in and then they seemed to disappear. Where did they go? From our angle, we couldn't see. All of a sudden, there was a cut through the
sand which looked to be only 30’ wide. I
shouted over to an outgoing powerboat and he said to stay in the middle of the
cut, that there was 11’ or more of water.
Once through, the body of water opens into what looks like a small lake
with the Mears Great Oak Landing and the Great Oak Yacht Club. Definitely a good place to anchor when the
bay gets rough! We anchored early, at 2:30.
At 3:45, we got a call from Brian on ‘Mar A Lago’ because
they could not hail us on the VHF. We had turned our radio off once we anchored. They were just
approaching the Rock Hall Harbor.
Wow…and they weren’t inside yet.
He said that they were seeing 6 footers and it was a bumpy ride. They were glad to hear that we were okay
and we were glad that they made it safely to their destination. We ‘re hoping to see them again at the boat
show in Annapolis. Chuck and I both agree that one of the best parts of our trip is getting to know so many nice people and from so many different places. Most of them are 'newbies' like us!
Once the engine cooled down, Chuck went to work. He had lots of time on the water to think
about what could be happening with the Yanmar engine. His conclusion of course was that it had to
be one of the fuel filters. He explained
to me that when he replaced everything on the engine in August, the one filter
was already a spare that came with the boat….so he installed it.
He wanted more spares for our trip, so when he called Brants in Port Clinton…they are a
Yanmar distributor…..he placed his order which was the same filter he replaced and they told him it was wrong. In the evening as soon as Chuck was finished grilling, the rains came. Once again I want to thank CJ for making our enclosure for us. It is so nice to be able to eat or sit out in the cockpit when it is raining or cold. If we didn't have it, we would be sitting down in the cabin with the hatches, ports, and companionway closed up tight.....warm and with no air. It rained all night and some strong winds woke me up in the middle of the night. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.
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