Further Adventures Of SV Nutmeg

 5/29- Bolton    I just thought I would throw out some more tidbits to keep everyone from having to read some actual news over their coffee. Reflecting back on our trip there were many new experiences. Many such experiences happened in grocery stores. We went into a host of new and different grocery stores. We went into Publix, Harris Teeter, Winn Dixie, and even a Piggly Wiggly .Who names their store Piggly Wiggly and expects to taken seriously? There was an Aldi's, a Save A Lot, Food Lion and some weird store with a German name. Of course there were the ubiquitous Dollar Trees and Walmarts. It was amazing that we were never more than a day away from a Dollar Tree on the whole trip.     We did a lot of shopping at Dollar Tree as they had supplies that were much more expensive elsewhere. This included things like toilet paper and almond milk. Walmart was another store that was almost always just around the corner. I really liked the grocery only Walmart in Vero....

 5/26- Bolton Vermont     Well we have been home for a couple of weeks  now and we are finally starting to get into the habit of this land stuff. At first I was a little confused at waking up at night as to where I was. I 'd look out and nothing was where it was supposed to be until it dawned on me that I was looking out my bedroom window. Driving was also a bit a challenge  as moving at 65 mph was unnerving. Anyway we are mostly back to normal and I thought I would share some numbers with you.    We were out 257 days starting on Sept 5th and ending on May 15th the following year. We moved in   some fashion or other 98 of those days. Pathetically few of those days were sailing. We stayed at docks 64 days and anchored another 58 nights and spent 151 evenings tied to a mooring. We spent 61 nights in Vero Beach with the longest stretch being 47 days. We did spend 10 days in St Augustine and a week anchored in Lake Worth in North Palm Beach....

 4/16- Centreville    We spent today putting the boat to bed. Its really kind of hard. I mean we have lived on this boat for a year now and it has become our home. It’s like dropping your kid off at college. You know you have to it but you wish you could just stay on. We finished with the checklist and then sadly drove away. Thankfully we have our good friends Pat and John who helped to support us in our time of need. We can’t thank you enough for all your help.     We hit the road tomorrow to drive back home. It will be a long drive but not nearly as far as I feared. It’s time to move on to land stuff for a while.     I want to thank everyone who read the blog for your input and support. I’m hoping I somehow enriched your lives even a small bit. I will continue to post here but maybe not as frequently or who knows. If I have something to say I will say it. Once again thanks to all my faithful followers. 

 5/14- Swan Creek, Rock Hall    Well it’s done, we are out of the water and resting comfortably. Due to an impending storm the guys wanted to get us in as it is easier when it’s not windy. So tonight when the wind blows the boat will not rock in the waves. I am excited about getting home as we have not been there in a year but at the same time I’m very sad to be leaving Ms Nutmeg.     She performed beautifully and while others around us were having numerous issues we just sailed along. It’s not that we didn’t have any breakdowns but that they were minor or came at more opportune times. The biggest problem we had was the mixing elbow which took a day to replace as soon as I had one made. We did bounce off the bottom a few times as witnessed by the lack of bottom paint on the front of the keel. But she’s big and strong there so no big deal.      We had to deal with living in a much smaller space also. We pared down our possessions and adjusted....

 5/13- St Michaels to Swan Creek (Rock Hall)    I let Alayne finish her coffee before we left today. There was some wind but not enough to move us so we motored out to the beginning of East Bay where we turned on a broad reach. I had debated whether or not to put a reef in but now I’m glad I did. The wind was 10-15 but as we turned more south it came more on the nose. We ended up having to tack a couple of times and still we weren’t going to make the corner. So I put on the motor and pushed us around the corner into the bay. Now the wind was south and right behind us so I dropped the main and stay sail and we ran with just the Yankee. We slowly crossed under the Bay Bridge and as it was getting late we looked to Mr Perkins once again.      We motored down a narrow and shallow creek to find our assigned mooring and tied up. This completed this section of our journey. We have been living on our boat since June last year a total of 11 months. We have traveled ...

 5/12- St Michaels    We saw the fleet of Cape Dories off this morning. It was a good time talking shop and I’m sure we will meet some of these folks again. It was an off and on day weatherwise. When I got up and poked my head out the sun was shining but by the time I pulled back the hatch cover it started to rain. Then the sun would come back out. Etc etc …    We did use the rain to pull out the anchor chain and line and get it cleaned and rinsed off. We are starting to put together a plan for when we get hauled out. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself as I don’t know how the marina will handle it. It will be interesting as we are going out as most everyone else is going in. Most of the people we met this weekend had just launched their boats and some had yet to put their sails on.     I had spent some time wandering around the museum this weekend and learning some of the history and lore of this area. I learned a lot about oystering and ...

 5/11- St Michaels     Yesterday was cold and rainy and the east wind continued to slap away at the stern of the boat. We even turned the heater on which made the cabin nice and cozy. Our friends Joe and Nancy drove up and we chatted and went to lunch. We were here for a Cape Dory rally and so far no one but us had shown up.      Eventually a CD 330 came and then Thad the organizer showed up. We had a couple of more CD 36’s pull in later. We all got on the dock and started talking CD’s. We all then made our way over to the bar and had some dinner.     Saturday dawn crystal clear. I guess the northern lights last night must have burned up some of the clouds. All the captains got together on the dock and we talked and compared and chatted and took tours of each other’s boat. Several people had shown up without boats and were full of questions. It was a good time getting to meet some of these folks who I have chatted with online but never m...

 5/9- Dunn Cove to St Michael’s     We left very early this morning so as to try and beat the wind and rain. As it turned out we had neither. We did however get to see the house that went with the Bald Eagle Point farm. It was truly an impressive sight. The homes surrounding Dunn Cove and a lot of the coast here are not the flashy architectural wonders you see further south. These are mansions in the truest sense of the word. Stately columns and red brick walls make these homes worth oooing over. The best part though is that they are spread out. They are not so close together you could barely fit a lawn mower between them like Florida.     The bay was again like glass, there was barely a ripple on the water. We decided to try a route that took us inside Poplar Island. Poplar Island is a man made island owned by the Army Corps of Engineers and is used as a depository for the spoils of dredging. Uniquely though they have turned it into a nesting habitat ...

 5/8- Solomon Island to Dunn Cove ( Tillman Island)    It was a nice quiet morning in the creek when we left. We motored over to Back Creek to say goodbye to the Caverly’s on My Pleasure. Last night when I woke up I could hear steady traffic going over the bridge so I thought it must be 6:30 or so. Imagine my surprise when it turned out it was 3:30am. The traffic never really let up all night long.      Once we got out in the bay we ran our sails up and had a really nice broad reach for about 10 miles or so before the wind just petered out. We slapped on the autopilot and pointed her in the general direction and sat back and watched water go by. It was pretty hot out in the sun so I dug out my father’s old golf umbrella and we rigged it up for some shade.      We wound our way up the creek until we came to this nice little cove. It was fairly shallow but big enough and there were some really nice houses on shore. It looked like a park on one ...

 5/7- Reedville to Mill Creek (Solomon Islands)    The trip out of Reedsville was particularly uninspiring. It was just plain gray out. The water was a steely gray and the sky was ashen in color. The buoys were about the only color to be found anywhere. The shore was shrouded in clouds so there was barely a smudge of darker gray every once in a while. By the time we trudged across the Potomac the fog rolled in. This really grayed everything out. It was time to turn on the radar which we haven’t used since December. Of course what happens, it won’t turn on. Now we are cruising along into fog with a half mile of visibility and I can’t figure out why the radar won’t work. Then Alayne suggests turning it off and turning it back on. Ha, like that would do anything. Yet it does and the radar is working again. Not that it made much difference as in the next hour until it cleared we didn’t see a single target on the radar.      About this time we picked up a couple...

 4/6- Godfrey Bay to Sandy Point (Reedsville)    We only had 20 miles to do today so we thought we would sleep in. Right!? We were sitting around wondering what to do and figured let’s just go. After getting the anchor up and motoring out of the bay we discovered that the wind was light and we weren’t in a hurry. That means spinnaker.      I have dragged this spinnaker for 3000 miles it was time for it to earn its keep. Of course it had been several years since we had flown it so I had to figure it all out again. I had lines crossed and sails and lines in the way. It took at least 4 attempts to raise it before we got it up and drawing. Of course then it was on the wrong side of the boat for the wind. As the wind was more or less behind us we left it there until we got to the turning buoy. Then we had to go through the whole rigamoro again. Finally it unfolds and away we go. It was nice , we sailed along at 3-4 knots in less than 5 knots of wind. As we weren...

 5/5- Fishing Bay to Godfrey Bay    Yesterday was kind of a washout. The wind was supposed to be fairly strong and out of the east. As it turned out the wind did come out of the east but wasn’t scary strong. We ended up just hanging around the boat and then going in to hang with Bob and Samar. I helped him change his fuel filter in the hopes that was the reason his engine failed the other day.     Mike and Carla came over and we had a nice dinner on My Pleasure. It was starting to get a little rough out so we hightailed it back to the boat a little early.      It was blowing pretty good when we got up and out of the south. This made our ride a bit bouncy. So we picked up the anchor and motored back across the bay where the waves were much calmer. The forecast had called for small craft warnings today but that never really materialized. It also never rained on us until almost 6:00. I feel we may have missed an opportunity to move with the sail...

 4/3- Fishing Bay   Waiting for our friends and the weather kind of pinned us down today. Our friends left Norfolk this morning and ran into some pretty rough weather. One of them had his engine die and they sailed in and got a tow boat to come out and help them to the dock. We had a great time getting together with these folks here. They are people we spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with.     In other news I had discovered that I had a leak a while ago. I check my bilges every morning and keep track of the amount of water in each. When I see water it’s always a challenge to figure out where it is coming from. I have been chasing this one for a while and it was starting to get worse, much worse. The water was salty so I thought it might be the stuffing box as nothing else would have the amount of water that was coming in. Finally today I found it. It was a split in the hose going to the expansion tank. It was right under the hose clamp so I had to wait for it t...

 4/2- Fishing Bay    Maybe I got the name right this time. We are waiting for our cruising friends to catch up so we sat here all day today. It was a long lazy day and we managed to do some cleaning projects in between naps. The wind was very light today but will pick up a bit tomorrow. It is supposed to be east wind which should be all right for us as we have a tree lined peninsula just to the east of us.      There are some interesting sounds that come out of the marina next door. When the wind picks up the wind going through all the masts and rigging makes an odd humming sound. It doesn’t change in pitch or intensity but is always in the back ground. That and the ospreys in their nest right on the top of the marina building. They are whistling and clicking all the time.     Not much else happened today unless you get excited about naps. The morning one is a break, the noon one is siesta, and the late afternoon one is just a plain old nap. ...

 5/1-Godfrey Bay to Fish Bay ( Deltaville)    We spent a leisurely morning doing chores around the boat. We were going to motor across the bay to another anchorage. At Fish Bay we could pay to land our dinghy and we could use the facilities of the marina. It was a wonderful day weather-wise. It was sunny and very calm. We dinghied in and paid our fee which meant we could borrow the courtesy car and go into town. It’s not much of a town but it is centered around boats. There are canvas workers and boat brokers around every corner.     Walking down the dock we saw a CD 36 so we went over to chat. It’s always interesting to see what other people have done with their boats. We hope to see more Cape Dories at the rally we will be attending next week. We had a nice chat on our way to the showers.     The weather and our friends may pin us down here for a couple of days. The two boats we have traveled with the most will be getting here in two days s...