LAW 169: Back on Terra Firma

Wowser! Why do you walk like a drunken sailor, oh why do you walk like drunken sailor? Well in our case, it would be because we spent five days without touching our dear old mother earth.

Sunset, Still Pond, 9.17.19 eastern shore, md

Ahem. Magellan, our dearly beloved ship's cat did not even wait for us to tie up the boat at our home dock before departing for terra firma, in search of grass to eat and dust to roll around in.

Dead Kitty's firtst sailing experience

Don and i reeled about the dock, in search of said cat, who was nestled under his favorite boat in the yard before tottering off to revel in a little human contact at our favorite local hang-out, Schultz's Crab House. If you are ever in the B'more Md. region it is definitely worth the stop. My advice would be to sit at the bar, even if you're eating, all the locals do!

Morning moonset 9.16.19, Wharton Creek, md

Sadly, Thursday night can get rather rowdy there, this was perhaps not the best choice for re-introduction to human contact.

Sunset ketch. 9.15.19, Wharton Creek, md

The trip was amazing, the winds were never as promised, either highs or lows, still and all the weather was amazing, our provisioning excellent, the wine reserves, adequate, the visuals better, probably, than any of Timothy Leary's trips. Definitely, definitely something i can't wait to do again. After i take several long naps!

Me, relaxing, 9.16.19, wharton creek, md

Did i mention just how much essential core exercise you get by just being on a boat floating on open water? Oh yeah! Who needs sit-ups when you can sail?

We learned a lot on this trip, what we could do better, what we shouldn't do(never, ever forget to check the local NOAA weather channel for local conditions. Ahem, yup, this is exactly what we did on Tuesday morning. Blithely setting off out of Wharton Creek, heading for Betterton Md. to stroll about town, have lunch and top up our water. Sadly neither the Wind Alert program, Accuweather or the Weather Channel said anything about gusts of 30 knots and 5 foot waves, as we certainly would not have willingly set out in those conditions.

9.17.19, Still Pond, eastern shore, md. Pretty powerful winch huh?

Can you say "not prepared, boys and girls", i bet you can. We lived through it, proved to ourselves that we were capable of doing it, and have added NOAA to our pre-departure check list. Any sane person would. However even NOAA can not predict every minor/major local weather fluctuation, as was demonstrated by the wind squall that blew up Wednesday night as we were anchored just up the Sassafras river. Said squall also delivering wind gusts in the 20-30 knot range. NOAA was predicting 5-10.

Crossing the Bay, 9.15.19

The moral of the story, be prepared, yes you may have to get out of the snuggly warm v-berth to batten things down, and maybe even re-set the anchor. Not the end of the world.

Here's hoping that you enjoy the small fraction of the photographs we took on this trip, man i love my digital 35mm. It is so great to be free of the limitation of film.

Our neighbors, 9.17.19, Still Pond, eastern shore, Md

Hope you will continue to enjoy sharing our voyages on the SV Constellation.

More latergail