We overstayed our departure date of Black Friday by another two nights, opting to stay for the Middle River lighted boat parade hosted by Stansbury Yacht Basin. Although we didn’t decorate Maerin, we participated in the preparation, assisted Ray in hoisting his huge star into his rigging, and crewed aboard boat neighbor Frank’s boat in the parade. The route began at Dark Head Lagoon north of the marina and included 4 of the branch creeks off Middle River. There were about 27 boats, LOTS of lights and it was great fun. We were amazed at the number of people along the route. A wonderful finale to our six month stay at our “home” marina. We departed 0600 Sunday morning, headed for Solomon’s MD, a run of about 67 miles. The trip was a good shakedown, weather was clear but windy. Winds out of the south at 20-25 kts in the afternoon made for a very bumpy ride banging head seas of short period waves. Not a comfortable cruise, but we made it to Solomon’s with no problems.
We dropped an email to Bill & Jean aboard sistership Chapter III. Their home is in Solomon’s and we usually anchor off their condo docks. They are preparing to head south in a few days, and some brief email exchanges had us on the lookout for friends Chris and Joyce on Celebrate who were also planning to depart Solomon’s within a day or two as well. As luck would have it, they arrived at the boat just hours prior to our arrival in the creek, so we had a surprise drop-in to hold up their activities and catch up over a cocktail. After dinner we also dropped in on Jean for a short visit. It’s highly likely that we’ll connect again as we head south, we plan to meet with Chris & Joyce for dinner at Coinjock. Meeting up with cruising friends is great fun after not seeing them for several months!
One of the projects aboard Maerin this summer was the addition of an AIS transponder. Readers who’d like to know our location can visit http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/ There are options to search by area or vessel. Entering “Maerin” in the vessel name box will find us and display the related map pages. It’s an interesting site to visit!
