There were nine of us, the crews of Last Chance, Aquarius (and their guests),Tim the dock master from Delaware City and Susan and I. A wide variety of omelets, biscuits with sausage gravy, waffles and breakfast sandwiches were devoured. Not quickly, since the portion sizes are huge as you can see in the picture.

There was a 3 hour weather window that we tried to squeeze through to get home. Partial success, there was a 10 minute sprinkle around Chesapeake City.

There has been rain going on in the last few days, and we came across a water fall dumping into the Canal.

But my fail point was remembering that it takes an hour to shut down and load up. And we did all that in the rain.

We needed to zoom past Delaware City to get Susan’s car. On the way we stopped at the Augustine Inn Seafood & Chop House. It’s one of the nicest restaurants in New Castle County. It had some owner / chef drama around it across the last two years. It was nice to see they were still open. We did a mid-afternoon munch of their truffle fries and filet steak egg rolls.

Picked up the car and headed home. Arrived to a pile of mail and packages. Unpacked the car.

We dropped into our Lazy-boy chairs at 4:30, our official end of a great 18 day vacation and tour of the Maryland Chesapeake.

We had a few boat tasks to take care of, centered around the water system. We got a new water meter for the boat so we could figure out how much water we were putting into the tanks. After checking the strainer to see how the upper tank was doing (very minor pieces of algae) Susan dumped the bottom tank out. She got a small amount of algae, so one last flush should be good. She 1/2 filled the tank and added a load of bleach to kill of what is left in the tank. A good 4 hour slosh would make sure the tank was clean. She also added 60 gallons of fresh water to the front tank, that will get us through the next few days.

Meanwhile Doug and I did a run to the dump to get rid of Crab Shells and other trash from the weekend. Quick stop at the Giant and we headed back to the house. We all sat and chatted for another hour, said our good byes and at 10:30 pushed off into the flat calm waters of Mill Creek.

We passed the fireworks barge that had supplied such a great show last night. It was moving up to unload all the support equipment needed for the show.

Susan got great pictures of the trip out, and our farewell tour of the basin. Solomons is such a pretty place, I can see why people come to live here.

The river exit and entrance into the Bay was punctuated by jet planes from the near by naval air base (Pax River). We watched a number of planes take off, land or just scream by.

Once we got into the Bay proper it was just a long ride to Cambridge. The water was calm, so it was a super nice ride. We were met at the Cambridge Yacht Club dock and was soon tied up. As we tied up what little wind there was died, and the 91 degree temps soon started baking us. Inside to recover and chill out in the AC.

We poked our heads out around 5:30 and walked over to the Yacht Club Club house. It is very nice, with one room set up for fine dining and the bar area set up as a high end family place. Both had great views of the river and the Wednesday Night Sail Races. The finish line was directly off the dining room so we had a good view of some of the action. Susan had a really wonderful lobster in a blush sauce, I hadn’t had fried food in three days so I did the crab balls and chicken basket with fries.

We went back to the boat to recharge the drinks chest with ice and then relax and recover. Motoring around in the heat really takes it out of both of us, we turned in at 9PM.

Got up early today to make the 5 hour run to Solomons. First was breakfast at Chick and Ruth’s an Annapolis mainstay. Susan had the simple breakfast, eggs, bacon, toast and I went for the side of sausage gravy and a biscuit.

Back aboard, collected power and hoses, cast off the many lines (even with it being a no wake zone extra lines and fenders help) and we were off. Of course we took the Ego Drive down Ego Alley with a tight spin at the turning basin, and we were off!

Another perfect weather day, winds at 5 kts from the SE. So like the trip to Baltimore it was light chop and some gentle swells. As we got past Tilghman Island, the winds picked up because Taylor Island was no longer blocking the winds from the SE. Now with 80 miles of fetch, seas started moving from mild chop to 1′-2′ waves. But with less than an hour to go, it wasn’t a big deal.

On the way we crossed paths with At Last, Sea Dream, Hawkins Landing all on their way north. Chatted with a few as we passed by. Still seeing lots of Loopers that haven’t left the Bay yet.

We wended our way up Mill Creek to Doug and Susan’s dock. I’ve known them for years, but with Covid and their boat trip south, this was the first time to visit. We got tied off and spent a pleasant two hours chatting.

We went back to the boat, got naps (very important to stay rested), showers and then headed up for a crab feast. Theresa and Tom had Looped ON O’tug, it was fun to talk about their experiences. Doug had caught 23 crabs and had steamed them perfectly. With sides of Taco Salad and Pasta Salad it was a huge feast. We had slices of our host Susan’s home made zucchini cake. A perfect evening.

We headed back to the Quo Vadimus about Looper Midnight to get a much needed rest. All this boat stuff is hard work!

Monday 3 July 2023

Breakfast was at the Sip and Bite Sip and Bite about 5 blocks from Anchorage along Boston Street. We had the mini crab cakes (only ate two of the five, the rest will be lunch) Susan had the basic breakfast of eggs, bacon, mini waffles. I went all in on Waffles smothered in Sausage Gravy and waddled out with a BP of high triple digits. This is an awesome place to eat from either Anchorage, Henderson’s or Crescent Marina’s. Food is great, service is prompt and they call you Hun.

Off the dock and circled around into the Inner Harbor for a tour. Passed a ton of construction and then ended up in the basin. We looped around and headed out. The water was flat, the only ripples were us.

As we left the harbor, then the river moving into the bay the winds an waves picked up. A much rougher ride than to here, but all things considered it was still a very nice day.

Haze was heavy, visibility was 2 miles. It’s a well marked path, so easy to navigate. We got close to Annapolis and we crossed paths with one of the high speed trawlers. And we got dumped. No loss other than my pride, I thought I had the right angle.

Pulled into “Ego Alley” and backed into our slip.

Saturday 1 July 2023

We had decided that lunch today would be one of our favorites Fogo de Chao in Baltimore’s inner Harbor. It’s 90 minutes of food indulgence from the salad bar, to so much meat, and there is my favorite the sweet and hot bacon. Bread are little Brazilian styled popovers. So much great food!

We did walk around the inner harbor some, past all of the shopping, the aquarium and the Coast Guard Lightship Chesapeake. But all that food and shopping, along with the haze made us decide to get back to the Quo Vadimus.

Our goal was to have “ice cream for dinner” at BMore Licks a Baltimore favorite. There was rain predicted for 5PM and rather than risk being out in the rain we decided to wait.

The rain came in buckets!! With the boat being under cover, we’ve not been subject to heavy rains. Prior trips have been mostly fair weather or light rain across week long trips. We noticed some minor leaks (around the flybridge door, and coming out of the salon speaker) that we’ll need to do some research on.

A little after 7 the rain stopped and we started on the 5 block walk. The rain had taken both the heat and the Canadian smoke out of the air. We went along a tree lined street that had some really nice row homes. Fancy doors, some window box planters, even a toddler swing from one of the trees. A very pleasant walk.

BMore Licks has a huge selection of both softserve with flavors but also hand dipped hard ice cream. Susan went for the banana cream pie (it even had chunks of vanilla wafers) and butter pecan. I went for chocolate cherry and peanut butter and Oreo. Everybody was happy with their choices.

So ends another huge food day. While I’d like to think that the walking is offsetting some of these calories, I have my doubts.

Friday 30 June 2023

While on the fuel dock also changed out the fuel filters. They were pretty dark, and I wanted to start with fresh everything for the trip.

Pushed off the dock at 9:30 AM into winds from the NE at 3 kts. It’s one of the time that the Bohemia has been this calm. We continued down the Elk and into the Upper Chesapeake. It was also flat calm with just a very slight swell. I had caught the outbound tide so we were doing about 10.2kts at 2000 RPM, a fuel burn of about 6 gallons per hour combined.

The cruise down the Bay, past the Sassafras, then west skirting Pooles and Hart Miller Island went well. Only issues were the 3.2 million crab pots off of the channel and the heavy haze from the Canadian wild fires. Visibilty was 1.5 to 1.75 miles, so not the best. (In our regular Go/No go, I would have not gone, we hate the fog.)

We had done this trip in 2021 so there were tracks for me to follow. So we stuck to them, ducked the crab pots and arrived at Anchorage Marina just before 2PM. 42 NM on 30 gallons of fuel in 4.5 hours. Not bad for the first big run in a long time.

We got set up, lines adjusted and took naps to get us back on track. Looper naps are always the best.

Jellyfish are around when the water is warm. This is a picture of our dock neighbor, it was about 10″ across.

Dinner was a 15 minute walk to Mama’s on the Half Shell, (O’Donnel Street). Susan had the fried oyster appetizer (6 huge oysters) and a salad. I went for the Steam Beer Mussels, which was a dozen mussels, sausage, 5 jumbo shrimp, peppers and onions. It was also the appetizer size and I wasn’t able to finish it.

We rolled around the block to check out the other stores. We picked up cupcakes from Cup Love and pie from Dangerously Delicious Pies. We can highly recommend the Key Lime Pie. The sour cherry crumb was OK, next time we will order it without the crumb.

On the way back we walked along the water front. At the end of a creek / storm drain that flows into the river is this solar and water powered trash collector. The sun moves the wheels that lift the trash up the belt and into a dumpster. The wheels on the side are also powered by the stream flow, so during storms it pulls the trash out of the water.

Back at the marina we walked the T-Head of our dock. There were catamarans there, but sadly they were not part of the Looper Cat Mafia. The mafia is off on different parts of summer trips, one is laying in Boston ready for fireworks.

Like Wednesday night we were in bed at 9PM. The long days really are hard when you haven’t done them in awhile. Tomorrow we will try to hit the water front.

Thursday 29 June 2023

We are presently on the boat unloading food, drinks, clothing, etc. to get underway on Thursday. It’s a big load of things, we’ve only been bringing weekend things down. All of that fit’s in a small suitcase and a few bags of groceries. This time it was three full dock carts of items.

Stay tuned as we get ready to do a two week cruise around the Chesapeake.

You can see all the posts as a group here Summer of 2023 trips
Wednesday 28 June 2023

During Looper visits in 2023, I was told that Crisfield wasn’t really such a great place and in fact, Tangiers with the passing of Mr. Parks had fallen into disrepair.

Since I had a trip planned for Wallops Island VA, I thought I’d take a quick detour off to Crisfield to check it out.

Crisfield is on the Eastern Shore of Maryland at the MD/VA border. It was famous for it’s fishing, crabbing and oyster fleets. Sadly with Covid the fishing and crabbing have dwindled. As like most of Virginia, Maryland Oystermen are working on the large number of projects to rebuild the oyster beds. It’s paying off, they have planted over 10 billion oysters in a large number of beds across the bay. So the number of oysters will grow, and some will switch back to the harvest side.

When I was there I had brunch at the Water’s Edge Cafe. I had my goto Sausage Gravy on a waffle. The waffle was very crispy and the sausage gravy was loaded with meat. Total cost was $10 with a 20% tip.

I checked out the waterfront area. There are ferry boats that run 7 days a week weather permitting to Smith and Tangier Island. With Tangier marina facilities on the decline, these ferry’s may be the best way to see the islands.

The Captains I talked to said that there was a decent flow with people that live on the islands, but as of now ( mid-June 2023) tourist traffic was light. They were hopeful that with schools being closed for the summer that there would be more activity.

In Crisfield the place to stay is Somers Cove Marina. It’s a large facility with pump out, a nice bath house docks are in amazing shape. Downside is it’s about 8 block to the restaurants in town that are open.

On my way out of town, I got a crabcake from the Fisherman’s grill. It was very good, very little filler. They are closed Monday and Tuesdays (lack of help and not many Monday / Tuesday tourists) but have good hours the rest of the week.

Other than the small (4 block) shopping district at the entrance to Somers Cove there isn’t much else to see or do. I’d still recommend it as a 2 day stop with riding the ferry to the other two Islands in the middle.

We cruised over on Saturday the 8th. Catching the tide and the fast current in the C&D canal got us there at 11:30 in the morning.

We ate fair food for dinner, with an emphasis on all things fried. It was a nice night and with the earlier sunset fireworks started at 7PM (much, much earlier than the 9:15 start in July.

As usual it was an amazing show. We had seats about a block from the launch point, so we could feel the big thumps as the larger shells rocketed skyward.

Breakfast on Sunday was at Sunday’s 64 Cafe. Its our goto place for Breakfast in Delaware City. It’s is fine southern cooking at it’s best. I normally get the savory waffle covered with sausage gravy. I’ve had the shrimp and grits which is also amazing. You can’t finish one of the breakfasts, so plan on eating it the next day.

We took off after breakfast, clearing the buoy at the branch canal about 11 AM. A very uneventful ride down the C&D. While the winds were about 15, being sheltered in the canal made it an easy transit. The last mile down the Bohemia was a little bumpy, but still an easy ride.

Looking forward to next years trip!

One of our favorite trips is to go to Delaware City (at the eastern end of the C&D canal) for Delaware City Day.

We walked the 2 blocks from the Delaware City Marina