Reflections on Water

Coming from the west coast of Australia means beaches of white sand and rugged limestone. Water comes in all the variations on the theme of blue, from blue-grey through holiday-brochure turquoise to the indigo of the deepest ocean.

Chesapeake Bay water is the green-black of motor oil, whether it's three feet or thirty feet deep. It teems with life, reminding you of the millions of primordial life-forms concentrated in every drop of oil. It's fecund, biological water, the colour of life. Surprising and mysterious things surface - huge silver fish leap and then vanish; schools of tiny fingerlings are herded by miniature pike; the fins of a ray lift suddenly from the murk; a hideous mud-coloured fish is scooped up by an osprey, briefly astonished to find itself swimming through the clear blue of the sky. Crabs huddle in the shallows, males grasping the females, twin sets of goggle eyes tracking you.

At night the water is oily black, reflecting the red, green and white channel markers in long ladders of light. Sunrise and sunset it is silver pink, like molten metal.

Terry's Beer Tour of the World #3

Fordham

http://fordhambrewing.com/our-brews/

Helles Lager.  A Delaware beer, from a brewery established in 1703 in Dover, Delaware.

5.7% Alc.  Very nice.  Low fizz, light hops, well balanced – light head that doesn’t stay long. They make a great range including some real heavyweights.  The website is worth a look.

note:-  where I bought this six-pack near Towne Centre they had a rack of Absolut quart bottles for $19.99 each.  All the different flavours.  Haven’t finished my Margaritas or I would have grabbed one.

Magic Hat

Almost Pale Ale

http://www.magichat.net/elixirs/9

5.1% Fruity apricot or orange. Not much else. Overpowers anything else.  Thin. Not something I liked.

Fix Lager

http://www.fixbeerusa.com/

Greek beer, since 1864, brewed by a Bavarian who came to Greece with the new King.  Very nice.  A little chewy but crisp and clear.  No head to speak of but nice, especially when cold and in a cold accompanying glass.

Belhaven Scottish Ale

http://www.belhaven.co.uk/row/belhaven/scottishale.php

5.2%.  Very nice – top of the range stuff.  Malty and hoppy – burnt toffee taste.  Low head, not very heavy.  An old Scottish brewery and this is their oldest beer.  Definitely one to travel to Scotland for if you can’t get it locally.

Blues' Golden Ale

http://www.16milebrewery.com/

Had the Blues Golden Ale at the Fish Whistle in Chestertown, looking out over the Chester River at Common Sense at anchor

 A mellow, yet refreshing golden ale with balanced layers of flavor. The crisp and clean finish of Blues’ Golden Ale makes it the perfect complement to any meal. 16 Mile names this golden ale for The Delaware Blues who fought in almost every battle of the Revolutionary War. A monument in their honor is located Outside of Legislative Hall in Dover, Delaware.

National Bohemian (commonly referred to as Nat Bo)

http://nationalbohemian.com/Home.aspx

This is good.  Got a 6-pack for $7.49 at a coffee shop in Chestertown.  One of the better beers I’ve had – not too sharp, not sweet.

Stone IPA 6.9%

http://www.stonebrew.com/home.asp

Hoppy and herby from the get-go.  I like it much better than the Magic Hat.  Comes from North County San Diego and is apparently one of the IPA-cultists’ favourites.  In the craft-brewing arena, IPAs are much discussed and much-consumed here.  If you’ve got to have a hobby, drinking beer should be at least considered, eh?  Not to be drunk quickly and better with spicy nibbles of some sort.  Should be on anyone’s list.

St Michael’s Ale

http://www.easternshorebrewing.com/

At first sight you think this is going to be one heavy beer but it’s not, unusually.  Other dark ales often have a bite that clamps your jaw shut tight but this is not like that.  Certainly a lot of caramel (even if they can’t spell it as most yanks can’t pronounce it!) and some hops but not a lot.  Very drinkable.  I didn’t realize they were on Talbot Street, St Michaels.  I bought a six-pack at the Acme Grocery on Talbot but they didn’t say either.  Could have wandered in if I’d known.  It’s a limited distribution beer (they only make about 4) and it’s only just made it across the Bay to the Western Shore of Maryland.  For a brewery that’s only been open a couple of years, this is a good start.  Don’t like any Wheat Beers, though so I gave that one a miss and didn’t see the India Pale Ale;  the current fad in the US for IPAs seems to be to see how fruity it can be so I’ve begun to steer away.  This real ale (you can imagine Falstaff drinking it) is a return to roast beef, dumplings & gravy.

Blue Moon Brewery  “Pale Moon”

http://www.bluemoonbrewingcompany.com/

Unbiased - didn't know it was a Coors when I bought the six-pack. Certainly drinkable and quite pleasant as a first beer after emerging from "Irene" hibernation.  Maybe not the long taste of a Belgian but I would put it in with other Pale Ales. 5 to go which will be nice when I get to them.  Good stuff.

St Michaels and awaiting Irene

Howdy folks
We're just back from a short cruise to the lovely little town of St Michaels, about 12 nautical miles south of our marina. Apart from wind on the nose so we had to motor all the way, it was an easy passage with all the marks clear and easy to locate. As we headed down the broad Miles River, we had plenty of time to admire the gorgeous homes and farms along both banks, all looking splendid in the sunshine. We arrived at St Michaels in the late afternoon, and headed up the channel to the front of the Inn at Perry Cabin (and by 'cabin' they mean fabulous 1816 mansion converted to a high-end hotel housing Maryland's highest rated restaurant) where we intended to anchor. It looked like a great spot, and there was one other yacht there already, but we had no success getting our anchor to hold. In fact, it came up clean, suggesting that this might be one of the few places on the Chesapeake without several feet of thick squishy grey mud on the bottom.

On the advice of the pleasant chap operating the local water taxi, we relocated to an equally nice spot just inside Town Creek. As you can see from the photo, there is a private residence on the point, just about the most idyllic spot you could imagine to live in. In the morning, the very elderly lady who lives there launched her sailing dinghy from her little jetty and went out for a spot of early fishing. Blue heron, ospreys, black-headed gulls and terns were everywhere, and fish, turtle and crabs were obviously plentiful. What a good life!

Tuesday was a perfect day so we got all ready to dinghy into town, only to confront our recalcitrant outboard motor once again. I have to confess that I have always hated outboard motors. Like lawn mowers, they are part of a conspiracy against women. They are designed to be impossible to start unless you have the biceps and wingspan of a bloke. This one starts ONCE only. And it doesn't stay started. Even Terry can't get it to start once it's done its dash. It's too big and too heavy to wrangle onto and off the dinghy easily, despite a pulley system. Seriously, I hate the thing. It's a Honda 20 - don't buy one.

OK, so now we're rowing into town, a bit sweatier and grumpier than when we started. But hey - it's an unbelievably beautiful day, with a soft summer breeze and storybook little fluffy clouds, so we got over it. St Michaels is lovely. It's been a settlement since the 17th century, but most of the homes are from around the 1860s. Older buildings include the 'cannonball house' (see photo), the only casualty of a planned British attack during the War of Independence that the townspeople managed to avert by hanging lanterns in a nearby forest, so the Poms overshot their mark by a mile or so.

St Michaels is a very pretty town that seems to have hit the right balance between presenting its best features for tourists and staying a friendly small community. The bells of Christ Church ring out the hours and quarters, along with a hymn every now and then. Leonie will be sorry to hear that you can't escape "Lord of the Dance", even by sailing to the other side of the world! The church was one of the earliest Episcopalian churches - splitters from the Church of England when things English no longer had much appeal. Obviously they're not very exclusive regarding their congregation.

St Michaels has a terrific maritime museum, including an authentically furnished 1879 lighthouse and lots of old boats undergoing restoration. Its ten exhibit buildings really capture the life of the Bay over generations. My favourites? A beautifully detailed collection of duck-hunting decoys, a replica of the boat in which John Smith first explored the Bay and paintings of some of the earliest Americas Cup yacht races.

It's definitely worth a stroll down the main street, which is lined with very cool little shops and galleries.

We cut short our stay in St Michaels owing to a storm forecast for the next day followed by Hurricane Irene making her way slowly up the east coast. Now in the process of tying down, stowing away and securing everything while we wait to see what happens. It's likely there will be some storm surge and we need to be prepared to let out our lines when the waters rise. Fortunately a boat is a good place to be as far as self-sufficiency goes - we have power, light, food, water to last for a few days if necesssary. Ten years ago this whole area was flooded by Hurricane Isabel, so it can certainly happen.

Anyway, we're all prepared and hoping for the best.

xxx Carol & Terry

Sailing to Chester Town

Just back from our first cruise unaccompanied by local experts, so obviously we made the trip safely! The Chester River is one of the many rivers that flow into the Chesapeake, and it provides a fairly easy sail/ motor journey to Chester Town. For the first day I plotted our course to the mouth of the Corsica River, a tributary of the Chester, where we thought we would probably stay over night. It was a very simple course between easily located markers, and a 10 knot westerly wind meant that we could do most of the miles under sail. We anchored just a little way inside the Corsica, quite near a luxury mansion and grounds built and once owned by John Jakob Raskob (General Motors president who built the Empire State Building) and now the property of the Russian Embassy. I was just a little disappointed that we had no James Bond-style encounters with KGB frogmen, just a pleasant lunch and an afternoon slacking off with PG Wodehouse on my Kindle. The new anchor performed exceptionally well, gripping first go and holding effectively despite swings in wind and current throughout the night. When we pulled it up, it came accompanied by about forty pounds of best Bay mud.

Next day we motored up the river, following a well-marked, deep channel to Chester Town where we anchored off the channel, between the town marina and bridge. Three other yachts were at anchor there, so we figured we were well clear of the underwater cable that is a bit of an anchoring hazard here. Dinghied in and tied up to a floating dock, then took a stroll around this beautiful little town. 'Charming' is the only word for Chester Town: most of the homes and buildings are 18th century, lovingly preserved; huge old trees and interesting little shops line the streets. We had an icecream at Stam's, an old-style drugstore and soda fountain, then coffee at 'Play it Again Sam', a quirky little cafe full of interesting artworks and gourmet snacks. After further exploration we had an early seafood dinner at the 'Fish Whistle', a riverside restaurant where we could watch both Common Sense and our dinghy, along with all the local fishing traffic and the townsfolk enjoying an evening walk around the waterfront. The only downside was continuing difficulty starting our 20 hp Honda outboard motor. It's a beast of a thing to wrangle with, but Terry assures me that there will come a time when we will appreciate the extra power.

The night was marked by some rain and rising winds, which increased further as we motored back downriver next morning. When the westerlies started gusting up to 35 knots, we decided to put in to the Corsica once again until things settled down. This was a good move: by about 2pm the wind dropped to 10 -15 knots and we were able to sail most of the 10 nautical miles back to Kent Narrows. The channel back in to the marina is challenging as it is dredged through very shallow water and requires careful alignment of the channel markers. We were glad it was close to high tide, as Common Sense draws 5 ft 2 and there were a couple of spots where we were pretty close to the bottom. Getting stuck in the mud is a very common Chesapeake experience! Vastly improved docking techniques by Team Hogan ensured a happy finish to our first independent cruise.

Some Days are Diamonds, Some Days are Stone...

Hi All
I'm reading a few messages about all the cold and rain back home; glad it's happening somewhere because we seem to have timed our travels for maximum summer - it's HOT and humid - again!
Well the title of this piece comes, of course, from a John Denver song that I can't seem to get out of my head at the moment. And for good reason. Two days this week illustrate perfectly the profound philosophy summed up in this good ole country song.

Monday. Finally we were going to get our Cruising Permit! Terry had spent countless hours on the internet and phone trying to get solid information about what you need to do as a foreign registered vessel, to get permission to sail in US waters. Our case was complicated by the fact that that we did not sail here - if we had, it would be a simple matter of checking in to our port of entry and going through customs and immigration. Everyone could tell us that. What no-one seemed to be able to tell us was what to do if you buy a boat in the US and register it in Australia. Instead of answering that question, everyone would tell us what we could do if we had sailed into the US. As you can imagine, Terry enjoyed those conversations immensely.

Now, at last, we had found Betty in Baltimore and we hired a car to go in and see her face to face. Terry bravely overcame his bridge phobia (induced by years of living with engineering students at Currie Hall) to drive across the 200ft high Bay Bridge once again, and we located the Customs Office in Baltimore without too much drama. The usual scans in these days of high security, then we were free to proceed to Room 106. And there was Betty. A short, slightly rotund African American lady with very high heels and a calm, competent manner, she was a little difficult to see over the array of travel souvenirs that formed a perimeter fence around her desk. But Betty knew what she was doing and she knew the rules! A bit of document shuffling and a few questions later and we were the proud possessors of a US Cruising Permit! Betty gave us a serious talking to about what we needed to do to comply with the terms of the permit on entering other states, charged us nothing at all and wished us happy travels. Hurray - legal at last! This successful day was topped off with an excellent coffee on the waterfront, then the pleasure of doing the shopping with a car instead of a bike and backpack - luxury!

Tuesday. I don't want to dwell on Tuesday except to note that it qualified as a definite 'stone'. Beginning with a rift in our waste tank, a great way to start your day, it was followed by the loss of our TV connection and the overheating and forced disconnection of our LPG gas system. (This wasn't all bad - I had said the odd prayer for the loss of TV reception when Terry's partiality to reality cop shows got the better of me). Terry got stung by a wasp. And it was unbearably, horribly hot while we were trying to get these things attended to, which does tend to interfere with one's normally mellow temperament. So, we ended the day cooking up some chicken on a public barbecue and knocking back copious amounts of corona and the local zinfandel as the storm clouds gathered over the picnic benches.

Love to all - news of home is always welcome!

Marina Life - the kindness of strangers

Hi everyone
Not a lot of sailing activity right now for several reasons: 1. We're trying to do the right thing and get properly certified for cruising in the US. Australia is pretty bureaucratic, but at least we all seem to work to the same set of rules. Here the relationship between federal, state and international rules is a morass - and if we don't get it right we're sure to run into the maritime equivalent of Sheriff Rosco P Coltrane*. 2. Still some work to be done on the boat, which should be well underway by tomorrow. 3. We're in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave. We Aussies are used to century plus (Farenheit) temperatures, but 3000% humidity is a bit enervating.

All that aside, life here in Mears Point Marina is pretty splendid. The very best thing about it is the generosity and camaraderie of the good people who live here or spend much of their time aboard their boats. For example, Jane's boat Bliss is an institution for happy hour, and the folks on O Dock run movie nights with the DVDs projected onto a sail. Dave and Penny Renoll have been endlessly generous in driving the carless Hogans to pick up groceries and boat parts; Steve and Margot of Island Duchess came to Terry's rescue when he got a puncture in his bike tyre; Tim and Pam Fisher of Querida Grande kindly invited us to their home for a delicious meal of buffalo burgers and fresh sweetcorn and shared their inspiring stories of cruising in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and all places in between. People say that the cruising community works on karma, so I hope these kindnesses translate into well-timed acts of generosity back to all these fine people.

* Dukes of Hazzard

Maiden Cruise on the Chesapeake Bay

On Sunday July 10th it was finally time to test out Common Sense, and ourselves, with a proper cruise. As I mentioned earlier, we had the good fortune to enlist the services of Captain Dave Renoll of R&R Charters. His wealth of knowledge and experience was exactly what we needed to help us learn about our boat's capabilities and features, to build our skills and confidence and to understand something of the unfamiliar waters, winds and weather of Chesapeake Bay.

We planned a six-day cruise, stopping overnight at several beautiful, sheltered anchorages and one marina where we could re-provision. As most of you know, I'm famously unco-ordinated when acquiring physical skills, and my sense of direction leaves a bit to be desired too, so I was pretty apprehensive about navigating, taking the helm and just about everything else. Fortunately Terry's skills are way ahead of mine, and Dave was one of those patient, encouraging teachers who sees mistakes as 'learning opportunities'. His strategy was to gradually hand over all aspects of navigating and sailing to us, so that by the end we were pretty much doing it all successfully. A bit like when your dad runs along holding the back of your bicycle seat and you don't realise he's let go until you're riding by yourself! For Terry, having Dave there was more about being able to ask questions about the boat's systems and picking up some local knowledge - it is a totally different environment from home. (For example, you can't tell the depth of the water from colour anywhere - it is the same jade green whether it's two metres or forty metres deep.)

On Day 1 we left our cosy berth at Mears Point Marina, took on fuel and water and sailed approximately 12 nautical miles south-east to the Wye River. This is a really lovely spot - calm water surrounded by woods. I thought about the lyrics of George Gershwin's 'Summertime' because the livin' was easy and the fish really were jumpin' - great big ones, right out of the water! Our anchor wasn't a great success - it didn't set easily and dragged ('drug' is the correct word, according to Dave) when the wind changed next morning. More boat shopping ahead.

Day 2 we had brisker winds and covered about 22 nautical miles to Dun Cove, another very pretty anchorage on Harris creek, a tributary of the Choptank River. (The Choptank is the setting for James A. Michener's famous historical novel Chesapeake, a place I was very keen to see.) We entered through Knapps Narrows Bridge, a 'bascule' bridge which lifts at one end to allow boats to pass under. Minor dramas next morning as we just touched the bottom in Dun Cove at low tide, but managed to wiggle clear.

Day 3 was another excellent day of sailing, with lovely conditions and easy location of all our markers and waypoints. We covered nearly 60 nautical miles, averaging about 6 knots, much of it running with a light tailwind. Entry into Spring Cove Marina at Solomon's Island was relatively comfortable, but docking in a small slip was a challenge, and Terry was mortified by a minor encounter between the port rubrail and the dock. Spring Cove was a very pleasant marina, with a pool, good clean bathrooms and a shuttle service to the local supermarket where we could restock our provisions. By the way, our meals were all reasonably successful, with the pressure cooker a major hit. I would have overcome my anxieties and bought one years ago if I'd known how brilliant they are for creating really well-cooked meals in very quick time - a very tender and delicious beef rendang in just 20 minutes, for example! A pressure cooker has many advantages on a sailboat - rapid cooking saves battery power or the need to run the engine; you don't heat up the cabin so much in hot weather; and a single pot is much easier to clean up and stow. On the marina night, however, we availed ourselves of the local restaurant, the Captain's Table, with squid for Terry, crabcakes for me and for Dave, his favourite rockfish.

Day 4 was an education in the vagaries of the weather on the Chesapeake Bay, with pleasant light winds first up, followed by dead calm where we had to motor for about 10 nautical miles, to a full thunderstorm with winds gusting to 40 knots and heavy rain! Fortunately we had just taken in the mainsail before the storm struck, but we were a bit late with the wet weather gear. Windy, low visibility conditions made it impossible to enter the narrow channel into La Trappe Creek, so Terry motored around in circles, keeping an eye on the marker and the depth until the storm finally passed. As we entered the anchorage, the weather cleared and all was calm, peaceful and radiant with a gorgeous sunset and moonrise. I even went for an evening swim - unbelieveable when there had been thunder, lightning and torrential rain just a couple of hours before!

On our last two days I was responsible for plotting our course on the charts and I'm delighted to say that we got to both our destinations. Thursday's passage from La Trappe to Rhode River might have been a different story had not Captain Dave stepped in to remind me about factoring in magnetic variation of 11 degrees, but I felt quite proud of my chartwork on the final day. Unfortunately we had to motor most of the way home to Mears Point as we headed directly into the wind all the way up past the Thomas Point Lighthouse and the magnificant Bay Bridge; however the final leg was a nice sail and we arrived safely with a lot more knowledge and confidence than when we set out.

It was a wonderful introduction to the cruising life and we really appreciated Captain Dave's wisdom and generosity of spirit. I hope he appreciated the opportunity to add a few choice Australian expressions to his vocabulary.