21-22 May 2015

The wind died down overnight but the rain came, so instead of yesterdays stunning bright morning, we woke to a gray drizzle. Since today would be a long day we opted for breakfast off the boat. Our first try, Jacks Place, a local favorite was closed. So we ended up at the French Country Cafe.

We had the “French Breakfast”, eggs, meat, a potato galettes and a croissant. They were very good. The place is set up semi cafeteria style. You place your order, you can pick up additional items, juice, coffee, silver, etc. and pay. Once your food they bring it to the table.

We met a Looper, the Captain of the “Zendo”, they had been at our dock but visiting with friends. They were headed down today to Colonial Beach and then on their way. (Turns out we saw them down there, they were anchored off in the harbor.)

Next we went to the Torpedo Factory Art Center. It started out as a munitions factory at the end of WWI and during WWII made the Mark III airplane torpedo and the Mark XIV torpedo for submarines. They have one of each on display. In the mid 70′s it was turned into artist studios. There are about 130 artists there now. Some of the spaces were open and we got a chance to see some great art. I picked up a card of a really cool kite sculpture. The sculpture is $1,800 so I’ll need to put it on my Christmas list.

Normally today would be an “it’s raining, stay in port day”. It’s about 64 miles back to Colonial Beach and normally it would be about an 8 hour run. If we leave around 11:30 today we will be with the falling tide the entire way. On the way up we averaged only about 7 knots since we were against the tide part of the way.

We got pumped out and took off at 11:45. As Mark says “The tide giveth and the tide taketh away.” On the way up we were against the tide doing about 7 knots. Once we got past the no wake zones, we set the speed to our normal RPM and flew down the river at about 9.8 knots the entire way (some peaks of 10.2) until we got close to the 301 bridge (near the Navy Test range). As we got closer the speed started to drop since we were in the next tidal pool. The test range was also “open” so we were able to stay on the Virginia side and cut a few miles off. The final result is we got to the Colonial Beach harbor and into Boathouse Marina about 6:00 PM. A six hour run vs the almost 10 it took to go the other way.

Because the temperature started off at 62, I fired up the generator and Susan made grilled cheese for lunch. It was nice to have a hot lunch on a cold day. For dinner it was chicken and her version of Spanish rice (rice, salsa, corn) and grilled onions and peppers.

We were both tired, I crashed early, she stayed up to see how one of her show season ending worked out.

Cold and a little blowy in the morning. I did laundry, changed fuel filters and got caught up on some email stuff. Susan cleaned and also did some email stuff.

For dinner we went Denson’s Market and has an amazing dinner. We went with the owner of The Boathouse Marina. The appetizer we shared are Sugar Toads with a Cheerwine reduction. The fish is the Northern Puffer Fish. They take the tail, bread it and deep fry it. You eat it like you would eat a chicken wing, there is a series of connected bones down the center. It was very good, but strange for us, but it’s a Chesapeake Bay specialty. Between the three of us we also had scallops, fresh swordfish and really great home made crab cakes. My side was spinach with bleu cheese and bacon. A great dinner. We got eclairs to go, along with home made sausages and crabcakes for later on in the week.

Our host took us on a tour of the town, so we got to see all the great little houses and the backstory on some of the town. One of the great sunsets of the trip was tonight, so it turned out to be a great rest day. We both feel really good, having the day off made a huge difference.

We shared one of the eclairs, they are HUGE and also very good. It made a great end to the day.