Delaware City, DE (return trip)

Our last day of cruising for 2023 was Saturday, October 14. We had a short two hour run up the C&D Canal leaving our anchorage in Chesapeake City at 7:45 a.m. The day started off a bit overcast but it was warm enough with no rain which made for smooth sailing on the canal. 

We arrived at the Delaware City Marina by 9:42. Tim, the owner of the marina, met us at the dock and guided us as we did a 180 degree turn in the canal while the current nestled us along the dock. Tim always makes what could be a tricky docking quite seamless.  This is where we will be putting Zendo up for the winter as we did last year. We chose Delaware City Marina because it’s just a 45 minute drive to Philadelphia where Stephanie lives. We left our car here and we like Tim and this sleepy little hamlet so here we are again.

We’ll be spending the next several days getting Zendo winterized, packing up our things and loading our car for the trip back to Miami.  But before we leave, we have a very important responsibility and that is hosting Stephanie’s wedding to Ryan on October 28!  Stephanie has done a magnificent job of planning every detail of this wedding with Ryan and of course working with both sets of parents.  We are beyond excited because we think they are so well suited to each other  and we adore Ryan and love to see how they are with each other.  (This picture was taken at Stephanie’s bridal shower in April.)

Our 2024 cruise has been another rewarding adventure. We traveled 1,245 nautical miles cruising from Delaware City up the Hudson River to Burlington, VT on Lake Champlain. We enjoyed exploring many of the quaint towns and old cities along the Hudson River and had a wonderful time visiting new places as well as old favorites on Lake Champlain. We also cruised to various spots on the Chesapeake Bay.  We had a good balance of stays on anchor, on mooring balls, at free town docks and in marinas and we enjoyed every bit of the experience.

Every year at the end of our trip we ask each other if we would like to do it again next year. And this year, like the nine years prior, we have agreed that we want to do it again.  So until next year…

Chesapeake City, DE

We are definitely on the homeward stretch with this being the second to last day on Zendo for this year. We planned for a somewhat early start on Friday, October 13 so we left at 7:50.  Jonny wanted to catch a favorable current up the Chesapeake Bay as we head to an anchorage on the Bohemia River. Originally we were going to take an extra day and go up the Sassafras River to visit the little town of Georgetown.  But we decided to forego that plan due to a weather system that was arriving on Saturday. We wanted to get to Delaware City ahead of it. We can go to Georgetown next year. 

It was a beautiful day as we left our favorite Baltimore anchorage and cruised past some of the huge ships in the harbor.

The weather was sunny and close to 70 degrees and the bay was calm. It was so pleasant that we decided to cruise an extra hour and go all the way to Chesapeake City on the C&D Canal. This would make our last day (when the rain was predicted) much shorter.

Ken and Fred had warned us about their recent experience in Chesapeake City where they had run aground due to shoaling in the harbor. So Jonny called Tow Boat US to get their advice and they gave us guidance on how to proceed safely and avoid any problems. We arrived in Chesapeake City by 3:55 and set the anchor near a group of very nice sailboats that likely were heading south for the winter.

We brought Archie on shore in the dinghy and strolled through this cute historic town which we have visited in the past. 

Having decided to bypass the pubs, we headed back to Zendo for a quiet evening. We had escarole and beans for dinner (one of our favorite cozy meals) and watched a little TV before going to bed. 

Alas, our trip is ending the next day but we have lots of excitement ahead with Stephanie and Ryan’s upcoming wedding!

Baltimore, MD (return visit)

We left beautiful Chestertown on Monday, September 25 by 7:50 a.m. to get to Baltimore in time to avoid the rain predicted for the afternoon.  It was a chilly and overcast day and we spent some of our cruising time down below. We arrived in the big port of Baltimore six and a half hours later passing some of the huge ships docked there. 

We really like staying in Baltimore, particularly at Anchorage Marina which is a dockominium and where we usually rent dockage from private individuals at killer rates.  It’s a very well managed marina with great slips and docks, a large modern clubhouse where it’s easy to receive mail and packages. The marina sits on the beautiful red brick lined waterfront in Canton where we can walk to almost everything. Safeway, West Marine and a variety of pubs and restaurants are just a few blocks away. 

Every time we walk up towards the marina office, Archie has to stop by this machine for his treat (and for which we require him to do a trick)!

From the marina  we can easily walk to historic Fell’s Point where there is a great farmer’s market on Saturdays and lots of good restaurants. Our plan was to be here for almost three weeks before heading back to Delaware City where we will winter Zendo.

This day also happened to be my birthday so after making a Safeway run, Jonny made a delicious dinner of rib eye steak and even had a piece of birthday cheesecake with a candle in it for me to make a wish on! We had a week of celebratory events planned so this was just the start of the celebrations.

The next day was Tuesday and our friends, Addie and Lange, were due to  arrive that afternoon but their stand-by status (as airline employees) had them arriving late. So Jonny and I went to his favorite pub just two blocks from the marina called Lighthouse.  This is a actually a liquor store with the most amazing selection of liquor, wines and beer.  It also has some food including a great deal on Taco Tuesday - three delicious tacos and a pint of beer for $10! This is also one of Archie’s favorite places to go (as  you might remember from the last time we were in Baltimore)!

Addie and Lange arrived later that evening for their annual tradition of joining us, wherever Zendo happened to be, to celebrate my birthday.  We had lots of fun showing them around Baltimore which surprisingly to us they hadn’t visited previously (though they have been almost everywhere else in this big wide world)!  

We checked out a few pubs with them (all were old and somewhat historic - some good and others worth a pass).  

We visited the American Visionary Art Museum which we knew they would love. It’s full of quirky art from unknown artists. They wanted to take me to dinner but we kept ending up at funky pubs instead!  

Jonny and I were committed to managing a MTOA booth at Baltimore’s annual Trawler Fest so on its first day I skipped out on him and Addie and Lange took me to lunch at a classic southern standby in Fell’s Point called Miss Shirley’s Café.  They left on Thursday headed to Bethesda to visit their daughter for a few days and I volunteered with Jonny at Trawlerfest signing up new members for MTOA.

On Friday night, Jonny had arranged my birthday present which was a cooking class at a cooking school next to Lighthouse Canton Liquor Store.  We had a great time that evening with the chef and about 20 other participants (all of them much younger than us).  The theme was Alsacian cooking and since we had visited Alsace many years ago we were excited.  It was a very fun evening. We made some delicious food and got a couple of new recipes. One of them, apple strudel, Jonny tried his hand at the following week.

On Saturday, I got my next birthday present with Stephanie who arrived for a quick two day visit.  She had asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told her the only thing I wanted was to see her, so she made my wish come true.  But in addition she arranged for the two of us to have massages which were just wonderful!  Afterwards she and I went out to lunch together while Jonny kept working away at Trawlerfest! That evening the three of us went to dinner at a terrific Basque restaurant on the other side of town called La Cuchara.  We had lots of delicious tapas and enjoyed our dinner immensely!

Stephanie left on Sunday and we took the day to recover from a whirlwind week.  The following week was more mundane with Jonny concentrating on fixing one of our air conditioners that we feared needed replacing,  Fortunately, Woody, our ace AC mechanic lives on his boat just a few slips down from us on the dock. He guided Jonny through removing the AC (an arduous process) and troubleshooting the situation only to discover that we just needed to replace a wire that had a bad connection.  What a big relief!  This small fix saved us a few thousand dollars! 

Jonny had fun with the (somewhat delayed) Father’s Day gift that Stephanie brought for him - a sous vide machine. He bought pork chops and made a fabulous dinner for us of sous vide pork chops with mushroom sauce and cabbage. We’re looking forward to more such meals in the future. He loves all his cooking tools!

We have also been waiting to hear back from a Cummins mechanic because Jonny is still having a problem with the timing on the engine. Finally, on our second to last day and after several delayed appointments the Cummins mechanic came and spent several hours onboard troubleshooting the issue. It turns out that we will need to have the injection pump re-timed which we can’t do until the start of next year’s cruising season.

In the meantime, we had a nice surprise in that our friends, Ken and Fred, who are on their way back to Miami after completing the Down East Circle Loop were going to be at Anchorage Marina for a few days.  They took the slip right next to us. We bought Zendo from them ten years ago and we have been friends with them ever since.  It was great to hear about their trip and to compare notes since the Down East Loop was our first big trip on Zendo.

We went with them to a local pub called Mahaffey’s where we had really good burgers. The following night they invited us for dinner aboard Freestyle.  Fred made pork chops and sauerkraut and Jonny made the apple strudel from our cooking class. A fun evening was had by all.

That day we had gone for our flu shots along with the Covid booster and the new RSV shot.  By the next day I had come down with a bad cold and within two days, Jonny had one too. So although we wanted to invite them for a bite onboard Zendo, that wasn’t going to happen. We’re just glad we got  sick this week and not the week of Stephanie’s wedding! 

Our dock was particularly busy one day and it turned out that the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race was taking place and a number of boats were docked at the end of our long pier.  Jonny went to check them out but I was still under the weather and missed it.

As we started to feel better it was time to start a little advance prepping to get the boat ready for the winter.  We took down all the Stratoglass on the aft deck, washed it and put it away while Archie napped on the foredeck.

Later on we rewarded ourselves by having dinner at Thames Oyster House.  We had an elegant and delicious dinner including many of our favorite seafood dishes and some interesting new ones as well. We had a lovely walk home along the waterfront.

On our last day in Baltimore we took Archie for a long walk along the waterfront and stopped for croissants at our favorite bakery in Fell’s Point called Pitango.  Jonny had been spoiling me this visit by bringing croissants back for me in the mornings I chose to linger in bed with my coffee!  But this morning I was more energetic and snapped some pictures on our walk including this imposing statue of Frederick Douglas, a Maryland native.

Later that day we did more boat chores and Jonny picked up some more groceries, though we are trying to finish the food we have on board. On the last evening we ate leftovers of the internet sensation Marry Me Chicken that I had made for dinner earlier in the week. Jonny had an MTOA board meeting on Zoom and afterwards we had a quiet night. We planned to leave early the next morning to start making our way to Delaware City.

 

Chestertown, MD

We left our Centreville anchorage at 7 on Tuesday, September 19 so that we would make it to the marina in Chestertown in time for my 9:30 Spanish lesson.  That way I would be assured of a good internet connection. 

After a short two hour cruise we arrived at the Chestertown Marina and tied up on our own. I immediately called in for my lesson with no problem.  The marina sits at the end of the Chester River, one of the longest rivers on the Eastern Shore.  The marina was a very nice one but strangely it had very few boats in it probably because it’s late in the season and a weekday. But we didn’t mind as it was close to the town and a park and we could walk Archie nearby without a leash. 

Chestertown had been recommended to us and described as second only to Annapolis for its charm, architecture and history. We definitely agree! It’s a lovely town with beautiful, well-kept homes, attractive and interesting shops and restaurants and a clearly affluent population. 

It also has one of the coolest bookstores we’ve ever seen. It looked very small from the street but it had numerous small rooms chock full of books and organized in a unique manner with whole sections on the presidents, espionage, boating, the Chesapeake, etc.  

The next morning Jonny picked up some delicious croissants from a local bakery - the best and most flaky croissants we’ve had since being in Paris. 

Michael Bracken came to pick us up on Wednesday to bring us to his parents’ beach house in Bethany Beach. We stayed with him for a couple of days which was great. The beach there is gorgeous - wide and deep, and sparsely populated at this time of year.  We spent many hours walking along the shore. Archie loved it and discovered sand crabs which he chased into the water.  He must have run a hundred miles up and down the beach in two days! 

We strolled along the boardwalk and through the cute town of Bethany Beach, a lot quieter than usual now that the season is over.

Jonny and  Michael went for a long bike ride and rewarded themselves afterwards at a local pub. We ate out both nights, once in Bethany and the second time in Rehoboth Beach where we discovered a particularly delicious restaurant called Shorebreak. It had fine food and incredible deals that night with half price bottles of wine and 50% off the second entree! Unfortunately, Christina wasn’t arriving until the next day so we would miss her but Michael now has a new place to take her for dinner!

On Friday, we packed up the car so Michael could take us back to Chestertown. Ophelia was making  its way up the east coast and we wanted to be sure  that Zendo was well secured at the dock.  But as we started to leave, the car was not sounding right and Michael wisely decided to take it in to get checked (hopefully just a new battery). He had to leave the car and rent one which delayed us some but we were in no hurry.  Returning to the marina, Michael helped Jonny add more lines and secure the boat before heading out to pick up Christina who was flying into Salisbury. We were all worried that she might get stuck in Philadelphia due to the storm.  Fortunately, Christina made it and wasn’t too terribly delayed. 

For the next couple of days we hunkered down aboard Zendo waiting for the storm to pass through. It was very windy and rainy but we had no problems and just stayed cozy on board except to walk Archie between downpours. On Saturday night we ventured out for a date night to have dinner at a restaurant called Watershed Alley that had been highly recommended by a few people we met. We bundled up in our boating wet gear in case it started raining again and walked to the restaurant. Fortunately the rain held off.  The restaurant lived up to its reputation. The food was excellent and we had a lovely evening together!

On Sunday we started to prepare the boat for our first visitors of the season. Addie and Lange have begun a tradition of staying with us each year on my birthday. They will meet us in Baltimore for a couple of days to help me celebrate turning 70 years young!  That evening I made a new recipe from the New York Times - a fish Provencal with shrimp and squid. It was a big hit - very savory and delicious.  

The next day we will travel six hours to Baltimore where we’ll be staying for the next 12 days.  We will be volunteering at TrawlerFest by staffing an MTOA booth with the goal of recruiting new members to MTOA. After Addie and Lange leave, Stephanie will give me my favorite birthday present by coming to visit for the weekend!