Kinsale, VA

Saturday, October 17 was an absolutely beautiful day. The exact opposite of the day before. How lucky as this was the last day of our 2020 cruise. In the morning, Jonny went to meet with the manager of nearby Washburn Boat Works to discuss the list of repairs that Zendo needs before next year’s cruise.  While he was gone, Lynn did her exercise routine and walked around Calvert Marina. We’re surrounded by some pretty impressive vessels.  Zendo is the little boat in the picture below

  

At noon we left Calvert’s for what we expected to be a five hour cruise to White Hall Marina in Kinsale, VA. It is located on the Yeocomico River which is off of the Potomac River. The weather was perfect - sunny skies,  calm seas and little boat traffic with temperatures in the high 60’s.  We passed Pop’s Dream, a 30 foot Catalina like the one we used to have.  It brought back a lot of happy memories of sailing on Biscayne Bay.

We had turned off of the Chesapeake and onto the Potomac River and were just about an hour from our destination when Jonny saw a very small boat with 5 or 6 people on it somewhat tentatively waving us down.  It looked like they might be in trouble, so of course we headed over to check it out.  Their outboard engine had apparently broken down and they were stranded in the very middle of the Potomac which is a very wide river!  Through a combination of their English and our Spanish, we were able to determine that we would tow them to Lookout Point Park at the mouth of the river from which they had apparently launched their boat.  They were ill equipped at sea, lacking a radio, lines, etc.  Jonny rigged up some of our lines and had to jump on board their boat to secure them for the tow.  They definitely didn’t have the necessary skills to deal with the challenge.  Fortunately, the four men and one woman all wore life jackets.  So we took off in the opposite direction that we were originally headed and towed them 2 - 3 miles to their launch point.  Luckily, we were able to bring them all the way to a dock where they could tie up and disembark safely.  As you can imagine, they were most appreciative and we were glad to be able to help them.  What an event to cap off our last day of travel!

By this time the sun was getting low in the sky and the temperature was dropping.  We cruised back across the Potomac and turned up the Yeocomico River.  We arrived at our home port of White Hall Marina and tied up on the face dock at 6:30 just as the sun was setting.

We had recently learned that our marina had been sold.  The previous owner lives next door and will continue to manage it for now so we’ll keep Zendo here for the winter as planned.  It’s too early to know what we’ll do after next season.  But we celebrated the end of our travels with Jonny’s Perfect Manhattans!

This 2020 cruise was a shorter one than previous years.  Covid required us to leave later than we usually do and because of that we chose a shorter journey.  Concentrating on the Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound proved to be perfect because we got to see so many friends and family who live nearby.  We revisited favorite locations and found some new very beautiful anchorages.  We are grateful to all those who provide support to us from afar with family and home responsibilities.  We know how fortunate we are to be able to keep living the dream we’ve created for ourselves!