Answer to Quiz:

Alright, the "Cools" have it.
At the time of this posting, 2 of you had guessed it right.

NO, we did not return home as expected.

So I guess that means - some of you think you know us pretty good ehaaae????

We left Selby Bay Yacht Club and decided to continue and venture on down the South River to check it out since we had not been there yet.
We had no agenda.
We came across a couple of places that looked interesting to us.
One was a place called "Mikes", a nice restaurant and marina, but no pool.

The other place was right where the Rt. 2 bridge crosses over the South River.
It is called "Liberty Yacht Club" but is not associated with any other yacht club affiliations. Just a party group as we were told.
But the good thing is they had a nice pool which we were looking for since it was near 90 degrees yesterday. So we pulled in there to check it out and decided to stay.
Spent the afternoon at the pool for our last day out.

Then we went to a place called "Yellowfin" Restaurant for dinner.
http://www.yellowfinrestaurant.com/
It is right on Rt. 2 as well.
Nice happy hour, half price appitizers but expensive dinners......
Dawn had the Rib Eye steak and I had the Red Snapper.
Topped it off with ice cream.
Very good........

Today, July 31st, 2009, the last day of July shall also be the last day of this years boat vacation trip.
The skies are supposed to get cloudy and rain is called for later today.
Dawn and I have had enough of our chances out on the boat with bad weather.
So, we decided to head back home to Middle River early this morning.
We left at 9:30 AM and were home from the South River in an hour and a half, 11:00 AM.

We thank all of you for following our drama this year and hope you enjoyed the fun along the way.

Until the next time.

May the wind and seas be at your back side.
To help send you along your way.
And may each day bring a glorious sunset.
So that tomorrow will be another great day!

Quiz - Are we comming home today?

Well I thought you might like to have some fun.

Several of you are expecting us to return to our home port today, CYC.
Many of you know us pretty good, others are just learning about us.

Test your knowledge about us.

Sea if you can guess if we are returning home today - OR - continuing on somewhere?

At the bottom of these post, is a place to list your reactions to the post above.
You can vote, 1) Funny, 2) Interesting, and 3) Cool.

So, if you think we are comming home today, vote for
1) Funny, and that will mean "Yes", we are comming home.

If you don't know us enough and are undecided, vote for
2) Interesting, meaning "don't know or care"

And if you believe we are heading out for another sunset, vote for
3) Cool, meaning "NO" we're not comming home.

Have fun!

Selby Bay Yacht Club, July 29th, 2009

We left Smith Island on the western side (we entered on the eastern side) and started our 80 mile trec up north to the South River, just below Annapolis. An associate yacht club called "Selby Bay Yacht Club". This is a beautifully maintained place with a nice pool (closed because of no lifeguard on duty!).


Dawn took these pictures along the way.
Here is the old and abandoned LNG plant just above Solomons Island and below Calvert Cliffs.
Another one of the LNG plant.

A view of Selby Bay YC from the piers.

At the club entrance.

The pool.

A nice picnic area with tables on the piers.

Out 310 boat next to a newer 320..........

I still like our layout better.........................

We are now getting ready to go to a German restaurant called "Old Stein Inn" for dinner, so........

Sea you later.

Smith Island, MD., July 28th, 2009

We spent the morning touring around Tangier Island, went shopping a bit, had lunch at a family style place called "Hilda Crockett's" Chesapeake House". And headed out the eastern side of Tangier Island (we entered on the western side) on our way up the the eastern entrance of "Smith Island". Here, we stayed at the only marina there as well called..... you guessed it.....
"Smith Island Marina". Steve Eades is the owner and his wife's name is Pauli Eades. She is very nice and talked to us a bit. She even hooked us up with some local steamed crabs.
We borrowed some bikes and toured the island, but that didn't take long either.
Smith Island seams to be getting more depressed as nothing much was open or going on there.
The population has dropped from 900 or so down to less than 300 for all 3 areas of Smith Island.
Not like it was when I went to Smith Island some 20 years ago.

The slips are right out front.
I like the reflection on this shot.........

After steamed crabs, I caught these sunset shots.
Another sunset shot.

Tangier Island, VA., July 27th, 2009

Ok, so I told you we got beat up yesterday on the way to the Corinthian Yacht Club.
And as if that wasn't enough........ the trip down and over to Tangier Island was almost a re-do.
Yes, I checked the weather, seas and all that stuff. There was not supposed to be anything significant until later in the afternoon, with afternoon thundershowers. So we proceeded to go to Tangier Island.

We left Corinthian YC and came back out of the Potomac River and started with 1' to 2' seas, 15 - 20 knot winds out of the south.
And by the time we got to deeper water of 60' to 80' or so, the seas had increased to 2' to 3'.
We were heading south-east, and the wind and seas were heading north. Boaters know what that means......... It means we were going against the wind, tide and waves.
A repeat of the ups and downs of yesterday.
And GOD thought he would add a little more adventure to the trip and throw in some 4 footers in there. It gets a little scary pounding around out there with no land in real sight.
2 days in a row and it also gets rather old.
But we made it, all safe and sound.

This is the only marina on Tangier Island. It is called "Parks Marina".
Here is a picture of the office, the slips and piers are to the left.

Here is the owner, Mr. Milton Parks. He is very friendly and offered to show us the town and took us for a tour ride in his golf cart. About a half an hour does it all!
He took a liking to us (I think he liked Dawn Better?) so I took his picture with her.

Milton, where exactly is your right arm?????
We were hungry so he dropped us off on the main drag where the restaurants are.
All we wanted was a light lunch at this time so we could go out for dinner later, but that didn't work out.
So we ate at the "Fisherman's Corner" at this time. I had a softcrab sandwhich of course. It was good, they put 2 softcrabs on it. A lady visitor at the next table saw me, looked at me and then her friends and said: "are you eating one of those softcrabs.......?" I said yep, and showed her the crab legs hanging out of the bread. She looked at me like I was crazy..............

Another restaurant, across the street (The Channel Marker) that we wanted to eat at but that didn't work out.

After lunch, we went back to the boat to rest a spell and all of a sudden, another storm came up.
The afternoon thunderstorm. But the forcast had changed and had increased a bit.
Dawn and I went inside the boat and heard the storm building.
Dawn got brave and opened the cabin door to peek outside.
The damn rain was raining sideways. There was 60 knot winds, small craft advisory, severe thunderstorm warnings, etc., etc.
I was scared............ he, he, he.
But thank goodness we were in port and not out in the seas....

It continued to rain for hours........ we watched a movie, (Thanks Jake and Lindsey!) then it stopped..... and the sun came out.
We never did make it out of the boat before 7 pm to get dinner. So Dawn heated up some Ham with Mac and Cheeze....... Hmmm, mmmmm, good.

Dawn with our boat at the pier.

Dawn, wishing I wasn't taking these pictures.

But the sun was now out and was just right.

And......, the sunset after the storm.

I liked this one!

This one is nice too.

All in all, we liked Tangier Island. Everyone is nice and friendly and we had a good time dispite the storm. We even toured the musium which is rather interesting.

Corinthian Yacht Club, July 26th, 2009

Well today started out liesurely, we woke up late after a Sat. Night at Vera's. The band "Crushing Day" was playing Sat. night and they were good so we stayed late.
Then we did some laundry and my wife made me take a shower............
And by the time we were ready to leave, it was 1 PM in the afternoon, damn time flies.
Anyway, we took a little tour of the rest of St. Leonards Creek and then came back out of the Patuxant River, down the bay, and down to the Potomac River and up just a little to an associate yacht club called Corinthian Yacht Club.

Now, this turned out to be an exhausting and eventfull day. As the winds had kicked up out of the south and we started out with 2' - 3' ers out in the bay. This increased to 3' - 4' ers and Oooo Myyyy GOD........
We got beat to shit in our little 31 foot craft to say the least.
Upppppppppppp and Downnnnnnnnnnn,
Up and Down.
For 2 hours out of a 3 hour trip.......

And then, as if that wasn't enough, as we made the turn to starboard around Point Lookout, there was a damn thunderstorm ahead of us. And the winds were now out of the west. In other words, we were heading right into it again. So, we slowed down to put up the issinglass and also get the anchor un-hooked (un-locked) in case we needed it. And it turned out we did.
We only had to go up the Potomac River a little bit and into the first creek on the right, Smith Creek, and then Jutland Creek.

As we did, all hell broke loose and the skies dumped on us.
I made it into the sheltered area of Jutland Creek but had no phone signal and nobody answered the radio at Corinthian Yacht Club. So even though we were right in front of the place, it was too darn risky to try and tie up to a pier during the storm so I decided to just drop the anchor and wait it out. Good decision. Didn't take too long for this part of the storm to pass.

After it did, we just pulled anchor and went to the restaurant next door at the Point Lookout Marina, called Spinnakers. I had a soft crab sandwich with FF's of course. Dawn had the grilled chicken.

It did continue to rain very hard most of the night.
So, here we are, all safe and sound, one more time.

This.......... is the "Corinthian Yacht Club".
It is a very big place, nice piers and pool.

I broke up the above picture into 3 pictures to try and zoom in a little.
From left to right.
This is the left side. Covered slips, club house and the pool on the right.
Center, they have several cottages that they rent out to members.

We were in a slip right behind the bridge boat on the right.
And the right side, another set of covered slips. We only had 1 day, which is a short stay here, but I wish it was longer.

Vera's Beach Club, Bikini Contest, July 25, 2009

Pier 2, boats that came in. A couple of big-ons......
Well on Sat. the place started filling in. They had boats come in on Pier 2 and some even pulled up on the beach.
Here are the girls that entered.
All I can say is it takes guts to enter something like this.
The winner turned out to be girl #2. second from the left.
She got $350 for winning.
I hope I don't have to remind you if you click on the pictures, they get bigger..........

Hmmmm, hmmmm.

Some of the crowd.

Vera's Beach Club, Sunset, July 24, 2009

You know...........
I've done pretty darn good not giving you a bunch of pictures of "FOOD" this year.
But, I just can't help taking pictures of Fantastic Sunsets.
You don't have to go to the Carribian to have a nice sunset.
Beautiful.

Absolutely Beautiful.

Vera's Beach Club, Dinner, July 24, 2009

I've just got to say this,
One thing that Vera's has got going on is "THE FOOD"!
The place is hopping, and I did get to meet the head chef. His name is John. And John does an excellent job.
The staff was running in and out of the kitchen and the kitchen staff was just pumping it out constantly.
Everything we ate and had was great.
Very nice job John and staff.

Here are some of our groups dinner shots.

And we even got a surprise visit from Doogie, Steve and Donna.

Later, Katie M. just gets her grove on and finds someone to dance with her.

And no, that's NOT Don!

We all had a good time.

Vera's Beach Club, Before Dinner, July 24, 2009

We went to Vera's a day ahead of the rest of the club, because we were staying there after the club leaves and starts to return back to our home port.
So, the club came up to Vera's just for dinner one night, Friday night.
This is Andy's boat with half of the passengers. The other half was on Jason's boat right behind him.
The view is down "St. Leonard's Creek".
Andy's boat, with Jason's to the left.

Our 3 boats were the only boats on Pier 2 so far at this point.

That changed the next day with the Bikini Contest.

Pier 2 is where the transient boats go.

A group shot.

No, I'm not pregnant.

But I will be trashing that blue shirt................

This is a view of Pier 1 from the hill. The people that keep their boats at Vera's, keep them on Pier 1.

Another view of St. Leonard's Creek from the hill.

A view of the Beach from the hill.

Vera's Beach Club, Overall Pics, July 24 - 25, 2009

Vera's pool. It is a salt water pool and is pretty nice.
Vera's, up on the hill.

View of the beach, before the bikini contest the next day.

View of Pier 1.

This is a shot of Vera's old house we got when we were leaving.

It is right next door to the Vera's Restaurant / Bar.

We were told they are going to make it a bed and breakfast place.

Now I'd like to sea that as well.

The story has it that Vera was a movie starlet and there are pictures of her all over the place.

She died a couple of years ago and the place was bought by Steve and his wife Lisa.

They have done a really nice job of fixing up the place.

Not only do boaters come but there were a lot of Harleys there too.