Capital Approach

We are on the home stretch, the last ten miles of river before DC. After making the turn at Fort Washington Park, it's more or less a straight shot, and you can look ten miles upriver and see the Washington Monument, and peering under the arches of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge you can make out some of the monuments, right where we'll be anchored.

We have about two knots of current against us, normally a circumstance that would have us anchored until a more suitable time. But we have to keep to schedule; at our current speed of just four knots we'll be in DC just before 5pm. Most likely it will take me until close to then to finish this post.


Vector at anchor, from Gilligan's.

Last night we dropped the hook off Gilligan's Pier restaurant, in Newburg, Maryland (map). This place is a zoo in the summer, but on a late-season Saturday night the live band wrapped up at six, just as we arrived, and we had a pretty quiet dinner after tendering to their dock. Their launch does not run this late in the season. It's the kind of joint that cries out for al fresco dining, but ashtrays everywhere and lots of smokers drove us indoors.

Today's cruise has been calm and mostly pleasant, and the outside temperature right now is perfect. That said, we've plowed through debris all day; recent flooding upriver has carried a forest worth of lumber downriver, and we've also passed a half dozen barrels, more beverage bottles than I can count, and no fewer than five tires, wheels attached (unmounted tires don't float). Also, a regulation basketball in new condition, and one of those plastic mailboxes where they deliver the morning paper.


Whole tree.

Vector hardly notices the smaller logs, bouncing off the hull with a gong-like sound. But I've had to grab the wheel and steer around quite a bit of larger stuff. Surprisingly, the pleasant weekend has quite a few boaters out here barreling through this on full plane; we wonder how much bent running gear results.

Louise spent a good part of the day wrapping up in the quilt room and getting it in a position to use as crew quarters should the need arise. She's on a one-way ticket to California, and we can't rule out me having to get the boat moving south before she returns, however unlikely that is.


Wheel. Or as we like to say, "tar."

On my part, I spent some of the day following up on the anchorage changes in the Washington Channel. We have to anchor a half mile south of where we were last time, adding that distance to our dinghy ride. On top of that, the channel north of us will be closed tonight from 8:30-10:00 for a fireworks display; I joked that I arranged it for Louise as a send-off. But it will mean we need to have our dinghy back at Vector before they close the security zone.

I also spent a half hour or so on the boat deck putting the registration numbers on the new tender, now that we have them from the state of Florida. The registration sticker, along with the title and registration, is still stuck in our mail, which you may recall is on its way back to Florida from Port Washington, NY. But we were able to get the numbers, which should keep the local constabulary happy.

We'll go ashore for dinner tonight, in part to get our dinghy access squared away and a practice run for the morning. We'll be back aboard for the fireworks (I have no idea of the actual occasion), and in the morning we'll leave to get Louise to the airport. I'll post here again when I have some idea of Louise's return date.