April 5, 2007

Grasonville, MD: Today was a bright and sunny day and we learned a lot about boating today. Winds predicted with gusts of forty knots... umm, the Captain said this was not a good day to be at sea. So now we know clearly that you have to check the weather forecast every day before deciding to leave the dock. While Captain Ken was here, he discovered a leak in the engine room... ooops. The great mechanic here changed out a part and we didn’t sink – another blessing. The washing machine finally dried a towel.

So we spent the day at rest. Tom installed a grill on the back railing and we got the fire extinguishers mounted. I used the stove for the first time and cooked a pot of fresh green beans. We got the electronic charts for the plotter and had fun learning to map our path to the next destination. The plotting system is terrific and not only allows you to set your waypoints (navigation coordinates for line of travel), but also shows actual photos of marinas on the path. It was exciting to see a picture of Bridge Point, our home marina destination in New Bern.

Since we have turned in our car, we went out walking for dinner. Under my ski jacket, I wore a fleece jacket and a wool sweater. It is cold! We walked under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge along a side road to a marina on the other side of the Kent Narrows. We saw wood ducks sitting in the parking lot; they thought it was too cold to be in water! We found a restaurant named Annie’s and got a table on the (enclosed) porch overlooking the water. This was a great place, tablecloths and live piano music, and the best cream of crab soup in Maryland. I took some neat photos of the sun and clouds over the water that reminded me how much God loves us (He is such an artist.)