The No Booze Cruise to Lose

As you can tell from the previous blog posting, our time in Summit North Marina was a food fest.  What you didn't see in the blog is that, over the course of 4 days, Vicki had three birthday cakes.  Rog and Lisa surprised her with a yummy carrot cake, Norm bought her favorite Black and White Cake from Papa's bakery, and Peg and Mike brought a decadent chocolate cake.  All of which were eaten with abandon.  All this eating and partying leads us to ... the No Booze Cruise to Lose which commenced Tuesday upon leaving the marina to cruise the upper Chesapeake.  We'll be cruising the eastern shore to Rock Hall/Chester River, then crossing to Annapolis for fuel and cruising the rivers north and south of there until landing in Baltimore for a month at the end of August.  During this cruise we're on a diet and no alcohol.  So far, we've each lost about 5 pounds.  We'll be svelt by the end of August.  Stay tuned for updates.

"ists" (very important) and more.........

Welcome back everyone.  Sorry for the delay, but we have been really busy.  First, and most important, our "ists" gave us great news.  Yes, the  internists, dentists, dermatologists, gastroenterologists, opthomologists and cardiologists cleared us for another year of cruising the high seas.  In addition, Norm's drug test, required for renewing his US Coast Guard Master license, was negative. Really!!  The AA and the APA, however, ordered further evaluation. We escaped.

Second, we did make some improvements to Tide Hiker.  We won't go into the miscellaneous small items that have been nagging us for a while.  But, outside, the teak cap rails are now looking spiffy again, and we have a new sun shade over the aft cockpit (back porch).  And, Tide Hiker's hull and topsides has a fresh coat of wax. Our friends Jeff and Karen Siegel, famous Active Captain (http://www.activecaptain.com/) guru's, gave us a great process for redoing the Teak WITHOUT stain and varnish.  Coooooool, huh?  Take a look below.   Inside, we replaced some old waste hoses (ugh), rebuilt a generator raw water pump, repaired the anchor windless, got the "speed through the water (STW) sender unplugged and working again, sanitized the fresh water tanks, updated all of our electronic charts and replaced old beat-up paper charts.  So, we and our vessel are ready to cruise again.                                 

Before

After

After

Before Sun Shade

After Sun Shade Installed-Curtains Up

After Sun Shade Installed-Curtains Down

Our time here was not spent entirely on medical checkups. Not quite. Nor was our time here spent entirely on Tide Hiker maintenance and improvements. No sir.  Our very dear friends made us, forced us to party hardy--sort of a  celebration for good "ists" results. 

Summit North Marina sponsored a pig roast while we were there. So, we had a great lunch of pork (hot off the spit) and the extras along with our favorite Miller Lite beer. Here's Jerry, Nancy Vicki and Roger partaking. Perfect for the hot, steamy days we've been having.

A trip to Wilmington would not be complete without a rendezvous lunch with friends from Vicki's previous employer, Chase Bank.  Here's Norm, Vicki, Dottie, Pat P, and Pat D at the Iron Hill Brewery Restaurant.  We got caught up on family, business, cruising.  Lots of laughs.  Thanks guys for breaking away from your busy day at wo,  wo,  wo,  again, I can't say it.  This was the perfect thing to do on a hot steamy day.

Meanwhile, back at Dock B, Roger and Lisa, both acquired the new Droid X smart phones. They were showing them off to us. Wow, the functions and applications on this new device are spectacular. But, it took Norm's daughter, Katie, to tell us about a neat app that's perfect for these hot and steamy days. Here's Rog and Norm demonstrating.

Nancy and Jerry love this great little Sushi restaurant near the marina that they wanted us to try.  Scrumptious! The Saki was warm, the raw fish was fresh, tender and mouth-watering.  And, the presentation was spectacular.  See pic?  Thanks Nancy and Jerry.

After dinner we found this bit of good luck on the car.  We figured that since we just ate raw fish, why not have this for desert.  And, since it probably ate every male in the area, perhaps some "just rewards" were in order.  But, Nancy wouldn't have any of it and Jerry was forced to shoo it away. 

Mike and Peg Wilson, our neighbors from our old neighborhood visited with their daughter-in-law Tum, and their grandson, Jack.  Their son, Joel, is in the service.  Vicki made a great dinner and we had lots of laughs with Jack playing at the wheel.

Master Jack at the Helm

Vicki, Tum, Jack, Peg aboard Tide Hiker

We also met Mike and Peg at the Cafe Gelato in Newark, DE (home of the University of Delaware and near our marina).  This Cafe was voted best in Delaware Magazine's "Best in 2010" edition.  And, rightly so.  A great experience in this neat little college town.  Mike and Peg will be joining us for some cruise time while in the Chesapeake.  Looking forward to having them aboard.  After all, the bilge still needs to be cleaned, all the stainless fittings require polishing and the non-skid deck surfaces should be scrubbed.  Only kidding, guys. 

Peg, Mike, Vicki and Norm at the Cafe Gelato in Newark, DE

Rog and Lisa hosted a "Lime in the Coconut" party aboard C-Venture.  Bob and Denise cooked up a heaping pot of their famous crab soup.  It was scrumptious.  Lisa rustled up some salads and Vicki made a coconut cream pie.  The drink of the night, of course, was "Lime in the Coconut", which were as plentiful as the tune, which we sang over and over and over and over. 

Bob, Roger, Lisa, Vicki and Denise aboard C-Venture

The "coupon queen" found some great discounts for Houlihan's Restaurant. So, Rog and Lisa joined us as we scurried over there for a cheap meal. The martini "flights" (a selection of three different tastes) where the hit. And, Vicki, who never does martini's joined Lisa for three flights. (Was not a pretty picture the next day.) The food was good though and they gave us coupons for a return visit. Therefore, the "Commander-in-Cheap" led us on a second attack to Houlihan's. This time Mike and Fran, reinforcements from Seaford, DE also joined us.

Lisa, Rog, Mike, Fran, Norm and Vicki at Houlihan's

We've also been doing shopping, went to the movies--you know--all that shore-based fun stuff we don't get to do when cruising.  Really liked the new movie "Inception".  More later..............

Pictures we missed. Enjoy.

Norm is showing off the neat birthday card he received from his grandsons, Jake and Evan.  Coooool, huh?

While anchoring in the Tred Avon River, we HAD to go to the Robert Morris Inn and try the crabcakes that James Mitchner made famous.   So, Mike, Fran, Roger Vicki and Norm dingyed over to Oxford.  Unfortunately, Roger's mate, Lisa, had to return to work that day.  The crabcakes were fantastic and we all raved about them--only to find out upon our departure, that the restaurant was under new ownership and the crabcake recipie was not the "world famous" recipie that James Mitchner enjoyed.  Oh well, they were great in our minds--and on our tounges.

Not to be outdone by the "Inn", we decided to find our own crabs.  So, we broke out the chicken necks, rods and reels and began to crab off Mike and Fran's boat, Dauntless.  We were very sucessful. 

Fran and Mike steamed them up in this steamer and got the mallets out for "slammin" those shells.

Mike, Fran and Norm picked until their stomachs were full. (Vicki does not like to pick crab.) Vicki added cole slaw and another side and we were "a-feastin".  Unfortunately, Rober had to anchor up and depart for Baltimore to be with family.  Too bad Rog, you missed a great fresh crab lunch.

After sad goodbyes to Mike, Fran and Roger, we were off to Harrington Harbor, North, MD to visit with Ed and Connie Dooley.  Of course a couple of meals were had and Ed and Connie gave us the tour of Chesapeake Beach and Deale, MD, very nice towns with tons of boats and boaters.  Thanks Ed and Connie--we're looking forward to catching up again with you later this year.  You can see what I mean about the number of boats.  See the video below.

Ciao for now.

Back to Summit North Marina, Bear, DE

Our final route for this leg of our adventure:  Oxford, MD to Bear, DE (Summit North Marina-our home).
Home-bound route

As I write this, we are still cruising up the Chesapeake Bay to the Elk River and the C&D Canal.  Expect to arrive Summit North Marina at 1100.  We departed Tolchester at 0600 to catch favorable currents.   Tolchester was a kinda nice surprise.  The docks and facilities are needing some repair, but they are working on that.  A lot of slips are covered and last years heavy snows collapased a couple of them.  (Hence, our reasons for going SOUTH in the winter.)  But, there is a nice pool, restaurant, tiki bar (w/food) by the beach, a beach with lots of dry drift wood for bonfires, some maintenance facilities and nice people.  (VERY PROTECTED MARINA)  We met a new Defever couple, Steve and Anna Keiser aboard their new-to-them 49 Motor Yacht, "Journey". (That's the 44+5 for we older Defever members).  Nice 2006 model.  They joined us for cocktails aboard Tide Hiker and we got acquainted.  Very nice Philadelphians--hope we run into them again on the water.

IMPORTANT:  WE HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO UPLOAD PICTURES BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT HAD GOOD CONNECTIONS.  WE WILL BE UPLOADING ALL THE PICTURES FROM OUR MOST RECENT CRUISES SOON.  WE'LL LET YOU KNOW WHEN AND IF INTERESTED, YOU CAN GO BACK TO THOSE SECTIONS AND SEE THEM.  Caio, for now.

Ed and Connie

The last two days we've been at Shipwright Harbor Marina in Deale MD.  This is home port to Ed and Connie who we met last summer in Reedville VA when we and they on their sailboat "Surprise" were socked in at Reedville by storms for a couple days.  We kept in touch and met up last fall in New Berne NC by surprise and again in Brunswick GA.  They were deluxe hosts - lunch the first day at a local eatery where we found out that Connie is alergic to bivalves ( hey, it's not everyone who can say that!), pool action, then cocktails on their boat that evening.  Day 2 - a tour of the nearby towns and then lunch at Chesapeake Beach, then naps and dominoes aboard Tide Hiker.  They taught us a new domino game - Chicken Foot - definitely doing that again!

Today we had  a short journey to the South River - the Selby Bay Yacht Club.  Lovely place - great pool - open only on weekends.  We're enjoying the opportunity to go to yacht clubs --now that the MTOA is a member of the Yacht Clubs of America, we have reciprocity with most yacht clubs -- it opens a whole new world.  This one which is 10 minutes from Annapolis by car is $1/foot.

Tilghman Island and the Lost Pooch

We stayed at Tilghman on the Chesapeake for two days, a lovely marina for a nice housing development.  Great pool - finally cool water - especially good since it was 102-degrees.  Our days were like this - walk/run in the morning after getting up late, poolside for the afternoon, lounge on the boat watching movies in the evening.  Very relaxing.  The first day we walked to Knapps Narrows.  Not much on the island.  A lovely cafe "Two if by sea" is just outside the housing development and Harrison's Crab House is about a half-mile away -- we could hear their entertainment from the boat.  That's about it for Tilghman Island.

The second day, we went for a run/walk and a young black lab joined us.  He had a collar with his name "Clyde" and phone number and was looking in every culvert for water.  We figured he was lost.  After explaining the situation to another walker in the neighborhood, she pointed us to a house that would help us by calling the phone number  - they did and the owner came to claim the pooch.  (Stephanie will be so proud of us good samaritans.)

Ahhhhh, finally weather we can anchor in.

We're still on the Tred Avon River near Oxford, MD.  But, we moved over to Plaindealing Creek.  We'll have a better view of the fireworks tonight.  We're planning on Maryland American crab apps, Coney Island  American hot dogs, New England American baked beans, Southern American Chocolate Creme, and Washington American apple pies. Mike and Fran (Dauntless) will be aboard celebrating with us.  Ummmmmmm, what a way to celebrate our nations birthday!! Happy Birthday America--We Love You!!

The weather is perfect, warm sunny days and cool breezy nights.  Unfortunately, it's supposed to get up into the mid-90's again this week, so we may be going back to the marina's for "juice".  We'll have to hit the Wye River on our southern treck in the fall.

We've been crabbing and caught enough for lunch for 3 of us yesterday.  (Vicki doesn't like to pick crab.)  Ummmmmm!!

For those of you following our journey, here are our  routes since we left Southport, SC.  Just click on the following link:
Our most recent routes from Southport SC to Oxford, MD