Cambridge, MD to Little Wicomico River, MD/VA

Monday, October 19, 2015

Today, as the Cambridge Creek bridge opened for me for the last time this year, I breathed a sigh of relief!  For the past month, the MERCY has been at the dock of Mid-Shore Electronics in Cambridge, where the owner allowed me to leave the boat for a month while I went south to Dad's.

Things never work out quite as planned!  I was expecting to return in a month, but returned in about two weeks with the threat of a hurricane heading up the Chesapeake.  The hurricane never produced, but, we had gale warnings for days!  

I had left the boat to have a Furuno autopilot and hydraulic pump installed.  Like I said, they weren't expecting me back for a month, so, though they had ordered a custom panel for the electronics, it hadn't arrived yet and the job hadn't begun.  Insert a couple of boat shows, and a lot of employees working them, and I was about going bonkers!

The plate finally came in, and the pilot and pump were installed.  The software and charts on my TZT were updated, and the pilot works great!  

We got underway this morning, saying farewell to Cambridge, and enjoying the great weather out the Choptank River and down the Chesapeake Bay.   

By the way, I love AIS.  This is what it looks like with vessels meeting and overtaking each other on the Chesapeake.  The TZT update has made the AIS integration a little better.

This USCG buoy tender practiced doing intercept drills with us as we ran down the bay.  

We came in to anchor in the Little Wicomico River, right on the border of Maryland and Virginia, just a little before sunset.  There is one other boat anchored in here.  

It is slick calm in here tonight, we enjoyed good food on the grill, the boat is warm, and the dogs are snoring.  Does it get any better?

Choptank River and LaTrappe Creek

Saturday, October 15, 2015

So good to be underway today!  The autopilot pump and autopilot are installed, and everything is working with our Furuno TZT just the way it supposed to.

The guys finished the job yesterday, and we did the sea trial in the afternoon.  After a couple of quick adjustments, everything worked good.  Unfortunately, the owner, who wrote up the estimate, was at the Annapolis Powerboat Show, and won't be back to work until Monday to settle out the bill.

I wanted a good day to put the new electronics integrations through their paces, so today we went from Cambridge, out the Choptank a little ways to LaTrappe Creek.  What a nice quiet creek!

The creek is full of great anchorages, a few beaches, a lot of gorgeous homes.  At this time of year, with a small craft advisory up, there were only a couple of boats around, anchored near the creek entrance.  There were also what appeared to be several recreational boats with folks oystering.

A side note, I've been enjoying fried oyster in Cambridge at the Portside Seafood Restaurant a couple of times this week!

Anyhow, our "day cruise" was great, and we enjoyed a tinge of fall colors.  Temps are supposed to drop to 35 tonight, and we came back to Mid-Shore Electronics dock to tie up.

We returned to Cambridge, where the Ironman competition was going in full swing.  I heard them fire the gun for the swimmers to go this morning before it was 45 degrees out.   BRRRR!  The tent was up at the harbor entrance.  So glad to be in a warm trawler!

Since everything seems to be working right, we plan to head out into the Chesapeake on Monday morning, when the bill is paid, and the weather has calmed a little.

The blog should be back in full swing with our travels on Monday!