Burnin' down the house

We are underway southbound at the northern end of Chesapeake Bay. It's cold today; it was in the 30s when we awoke at anchor in Chesapeake City, and the mercury will not reach 60 today. Fortunately, the cold snap should break in a couple of days and we should have some nicer fall weather.

Oops. A bit of ohmic heating on the heaviest leg of the generator.

We had an uneventful night in Atlantic City, although by the time I turned in, three more boats had joined us in the anchorage. It was getting pretty bouncy outside by the time we had pulled in; I did not envy these three coming in after dark in the rough stuff. They had all taken the very conservative entrance route, keeping them out in it a full extra 20 minutes, and when we left in the morning one of them radioed us to ask if they could cut the corner.

We left on a fair tide, had a decent passage to Cape May, and entered on the last of the fair tide there as well. We had the hook down in our usual spot (map) before 4. I splashed the tender in a hurry and raced over to the Bree-Zee-Lee marina for gas before they closed right at 4. We tendered over to The Port restaurant for dinner and to get in a little walk after two full days on the boat. They still do not have their inside dining up and running, but we had a nice dinner on the deck.

I grabbed this sunset shot over Fort Penn out the pilothouse window just as we pulled in to the anchorage.

The anchorage was pretty full when we set the hook, but yet again another few boats came in after us and squeezed in to whatever was left. I figured there to be a half dozen of us taking advantage of the same two-day window around NJ, and we seem to have been traveling in the same group of boats from NY Harbor to Chesapeake city. With the tide unfavorable for most of the morning, no one was moving.

We took advantage of that time to tender to the boat ramp and walk to the marine supply house, where I was hoping to find sandpaper for my varnishing, but had to settle for just the 15' of line I needed for another project. We also walked over to the Wawa market for a packaged salad, as we had run out of fixings. We had the tender decked and were ready to go at the turn of the tide.

It's decorative gourd season, people. On our table at The Port in Cape May.

By that time, a small craft advisory had been issued for Delaware Bay for later in the day, and so we had a bit of a scramble to get through the canal and up the bay into the narrower part before things got too lumpy. We had figured on a comfortable day to the Cohansey River, but the forecast said we could be pinned down there for days, so instead we set our sights on the anchorage behind the Reedy Island dike.

That made for a long day, somewhat exacerbated by the fact that the tide predictions were a bit off, and we pushed into the current for a couple of hours when it was supposed to be behind us. By the time we pulled behind the dike, it was well behind us, and we pressed on to Reedy Island itself and dropped the hook just at sunset, abreast of Fort Penn, Delaware (map). We had a nice dinner on board.

Sunrise from that same spot, over Reedy Island.

From Reedy Island on a fair tide, we can easily make it well into the Chesapeake in a day's run, putting us somewhere around where I am typing right now. But Monday was Louise's birthday, and we wanted to end up someplace where we could get ashore for a nice dinner. So we weighed on a fair tide and raced through the canal, arriving at the Chesapeake City basin just three hours later. We had the hook down before lunch, west of the half dozen boats already there (map). Once again several came in after us, and we counted 13 boats in the anchorage by nightfall.

I tendered ashore for a long afternoon walk and to see what was new around town. In the evening we headed ashore for a nice birthday dinner at the Chesapeake Inn, which, apart from the high-zoot prime steakhouse, is the nicest place in town, and our usual haunt when we are here for one night. The young and inexperienced waiter managed to forget our salad entirely, and the dessert list was entire un-birthday-like, so perhaps the steakhouse might have been a better choice. Still, we enjoyed a quiet celebration together.

Our very crowded anchorage in Chesapeake City, as seen from the hill to the east. Vector is center-frame.

We planned to weigh anchor Tuesday morning to continue to the Chesapeake, but Monday afternoon I learned our friends Ashley and Tate aboard Andiamo would be coming into the basin Tuesday on their way home from a short cruise to Philly, and we opted to hold back a day to catch up with them. We keep missing Dave and Amy aboard Selah Way, who have now been in three anchorages with us, but one or the other of us has been committed each time; they left Chesapeake City Tuesday morning.

With the harbor recently dredged all the way to the docks, on Tuesday morning I kept an eagle eye on the three boats that had occupied them since we had arrived, and when room opened up Tuesday morning, we swiftly raised the anchor and zipped over to the dock at 8:30am. We were tied up (map) and plugged in to 50-amp power by 8:45. The dock, with a one-night limit, is free, but power is $15 and water is $10. We were happy to fork over the $25 at city hall in these temperatures. In a decade of stopping here, this is the first time we managed a spot on the dock.

I walked over to Cafe on the Bay, just a block from the dock, to pick up breakfast sandwiches. This guy beat me to it.

I went out for another long walk, returning to Vector just as Andiamo was arriving at the dock. They managed to grab the last spot, fortuitously arriving just a few minutes after the sailboat behind us cleared out After greeting them and helping them tie up, I changed into my work clothes for another fun day of sanding and varnishing.

After finishing work and getting cleaned up, we caught back up with them, exchanging boat tours before walking over to the Bayard House for dinner. It was Taco Tuesday, which seems odd for a fine-dining establishment, but they were quite good, and three of us participated. We lingered quite a while, and it was a very enjoyable evening of catching up.

Andiamo whizzing under the bridge, headed for the fuel dock at Schaefers.

Once again our plan was to leave Chesapeake City yesterday morning at the turn of the tide. Our intent was to turn right off the Elk and head up the North East River to the eponymous burg, where our friends Stacey and Dave have their boat on the hard for a bit of maintenance. My charts say we can just get up there at high tide to a nice anchorage right off their marina. While normally that might be true, we've now had a few days of north wind, and in addition to bringing these cooler temperatures, it has the effect of blowing the water south in the bay and dropping the level at the north end by 1.5' or more.

After a consultation with Dave about water levels, we decided to wave off trying to make North East. They have access to a car, and just as they did a few months ago on our northbound trip, they drove out to meet us instead. There's really no place we can get to that's any closer to North East than Chesapeake City; Havre de Grace would cut maybe five minutes off their car trip, at the expense of putting us in a miserable anchorage a 16nm detour from our route. And so it is that we stayed yet a third night in Chesapeake City.

We bid farewell to Tate and Ashley at the turn of the tide yesterday morning, and then we ourselves also had to leave the dock, having used up our one-day welcome. We headed right back to the anchorage, dropping the hook not far from where we started (map). Dave and Stacey arrived mid-afternoon and I picked them up in the tender. We had cocktails and conversation aboard Vector, wherein the flybridge ladder, still lying on its side in the saloon, became our cocktail table for the afternoon.

Our new cocktail table. No idea why the weird expression on my face, other than difficulty snapping the photo while looking at a very bright window.

We all ended up across the canal st Schaefer's Canal House for dinner, just as we had done in the spring. It was a lovely afternoon and evening of catching up. After saying our goodbyes, we headed to the Bayheads Brewing Company tap room, growler in hand, in hopes of scoring some porter or stout. This place has always been closed when we were in town, but my excitement at actually getting into the joint was short-lived. They were out of the porter, and I found the stout too bitter, so we left empty-handed.

More holiday decor at Cafe on the Bay.

This morning we decked the tender at slack, with the generator running for some much-needed heat. When I came back in I noticed the heater was no longer running in the saloon, with a blank screen that usually means the breaker has tripped. As it turned out, one whole leg of power was out, disabling two heaters and the battery charger, and sending me on a mad scramble to figure out what went wrong.

With no breakers tripped anywhere, from the main panel through both sub-panels, my worst fear was that it could be the generator head itself. That could waylay us in Annapolis or Solomons, possibly for weeks, tearing things down and waiting on parts. It could also have meant looking for a marina tonight, another bitterly cold night where batteries alone would be insufficient come morning.

The most heavily loaded hot leg is extra crispy.

Fortunately, the generator was fine, and the problem was instead in the transfer switch. Still serious, as both the switch and wiring had something of a meltdown, literally, from ohmic heating. But long-time readers will know that I designed and built this transfer switch myself, from industrial components, and so I know how to fix it, and I even have enough spare parts to get things working again by the end of the day. That knowledge let us weigh anchor and get underway on a favorable tide, and we've had a good push all day.

I had a whole contactor left over from the original project. This one has a lower rating but it will suffice until I can get more parts.

We're hoping to visit DC on this pass, if the weather remains pleasant. That's a long trip from here, and so today we are making it a little longer day, with our sights set on the free bulkhead at Rock Hall, Maryland for tonight, with another long day tomorrow, possibly all the way to Solomons.

Not something you see often in Annapolis. We passed the pocket cruise ship American Constitution in the anchorage.

Update: We had already made the eastward turn toward Rock Hall when I double-checked the entrance and saw that the Corps of Engineers had released a new survey this year showing the entrance has shoaled to five feet. We were scheduled to arrive at a tide of +1.25' (out of a high of 1.5'), but the same seiche that ruled out North East yesterday means we'd see much lower depths. Deeming it too risky, we waved off.

Coming home from dinner we caught the moonrise over Vector.

With winds out of the northwest, we decided to cross over to the western shore and have now set our sights on Annapolis harbor. That took our arrival from a little before 4pm to a little before 6pm, which will have me working on the transfer switch late into the evening in a hot engine room. We'll still be able to run ashore to pick up the milk we need and grab a quick bite before I start, two things we had intended to do in Rock Hall.

Transfer switch all back together and working. I had to cut about five inches off the cord.

Update 2: As usual, I got very busy at the helm with the sailing chaos that is Annapolis before I could position and caption all the photos. Lots of boats anchored here leftover from the big boat show, and we had to squeeze in to the south anchorage (map). As soon as the anchor was set we tendered ashore at the Third Street landing, grabbed a quick dinner at the Boatyard  Bar & Grill, and picked up milk at the c-store. We were back home by 7; it is now 9:15 and I spent the entire 2+ hours in the engine room swapping parts and rewiring the ATS. We have our power back, but I will need to replace some parts now that it has some 5,000 hours on it.