Finally after 6 weeks (or as Allen says, 40 days and 40 nights) at our Seattle home after our sailing trek up to Maine and back, Afterglow is now at this moment anchored in the Coan River off the Potomac, Home was nice but a real work site for Allen and me, and so we were both eager to return to the peace of the boating life, though, in truth, I always prefer gardening to sailing. My many new plants, mucho weeding, (had to throw away my 30+ year old favorite shorts) and new blueberry bushes, apple and Asian pear trees evidence my hard work at home. Allen is now taking harmonica lessons and is heralded as a “prince” from his mother and brother Mike who needed Allen’s technical assistance for an ailing printer for the Dejay Products business that Mike runs. It’s been in the family for over 60 years+ thanks to Mikes’s hard work.
The view of our once and future home waters. Puget Sound from Discovery park near our Seattle home.
It was also great to see Allen's sister Laura from Redmond, OR, and his mom Jackie and our neighboring friends Jamie and Londe, bestest friends in Seattle, as well as dinner with Irene and Tony from Fremont and dinner with Laura and Helen in their lovely home in Edmonds, WA. Allen even found time to go camping at Mount Rainier with son Adam and brother Mike, have a Mech Warrier game with Adam’s friends while Norma served homemade lasagna and lots of other goodies. The best part were the fresh plums that Jamie allowed me to pick from the prolific plum tree in her yard. Yes, I served several different plum tarts and cakes. Norma also found plenty of time also to enjoy her newest guilty pleasure, binging Korean Televisiion shows (K-Dramas). She is happy to be back aboard reading.
More Bestest Friends: Yesterday, we sailed from Edgewater, Maryland, after spending two nights at the lovely home of our dearest Germantown, MD, friends Connie Guerra and Tim Cambell. One cannot find a better cook anywhere and a gracious host and chaperone and driver. Off the plane from Seattle and the great 201 bus (imagine a clean, plush bus ride for only $5) to and from BWI airport in Baltimore from Gaithersburg, Tim was waiting to pick us up and Connie was ready with a fabulous dinner. On Thursday, we went out for dinner at a favorite hangout that had a jam session band on top of catfish, fried chicken deluxe and wonderful potato skins and fried chicken livers to boot! On Friday on their way to their summer home in Bethany, they dropped us off at Edgewater’s Liberty Marina to pick up the boat and be on our way to the Bahamas via the ICW. The folks at Libery Marina took good care of our boat and we found her safe and secure and back in the water waiting for us.
Buns, Bonfire and Bingo: Our first motoring destination south to the ICW—Intercoastal Waterway--was to Spring Cove Marina in Solomons in Maryland. They had bikes for us to use to stock up on soft drinks, something I missed on my earlier provisioning trip to the store. Biking to and from Weis was fun especially when we were carrying several six packs of ginger ale and seltzer water. It happened to be a celebration of Spring Cove’s end of the season, and the marina treated all guests with a bonfire with goodies like hotdogs, chips, wine, beer, and s’mores with the biggest marshmallows I have ever seen. Yummy!!! I had two of them!!!! So did Allen. Nice chatting with the group! We topped the evening off with a quick walk to the Bingo parlor down the street and while we did not win anything, we had fun!
The Potomac River in Virginia: The Coan River which is just off the Potomac, is littered with lots of crab pots and we anchored as best we could to avoid them. The weather has been hot and sunny with a few drops of rain! It is great to be back aboard and we are grateful for a couple of days of good weather to get started. Some cold and wind is moving in tomorrow night but at best it will give us a push to the south and at worst we will spend an extra night tucked in at Deltaville, our next destination.
More as we move onward southward!