imageThe past month or so has not involved much sailing. Instead, we took advantage of good monthly berthing rates in Anchorage Marina in Baltimore harbor which is close to the Johns Hospital where Howard had cataract surgery for both eyes, two weeks apart. We had a pretty hairy sail to the marina from Worton Creek the day before his first surgery in 35-40 knot winds, especially after the sun-damaged mainsail furling line parted so we were faced with lowering the sail into the cockpit without having any good way to prevent it from flying away in the process….. All very exciting and even more so when we managed to wrap a crab pot line around our prop! Fortunately the line cutter on the prop shaft worked a treat so that problem was solved and we finally managed to tame the mainsail and make it into the Marina under engine without further ado, whew! The surgeries went well, as did our stay, and with much appreciated help from our friend Joe, we managed to get the mainsail back in place with a new furling line.

William and Karen flew over from Ireland on July 4th to join us for our next adventure, another Salty Dawg rally, this time to Maine. We set off down the Bay on the 7th, stopping in Annapolis and the Solomons on our way to Indian Creek, where we met up with a few familiar boats and faces and were welcomed by the Indian Creek Country Club members. It is a beautiful, tranquil spot with a fabulous golf course, pool and tennis courts so a very pleasant interlude. Yesterday we had a lovely sail down to Cape Charles town docks near the mouth of the ChesPeake so we could take advantage of more favorable winds for our sail today towards Newport, Rhode Island. We are currently enjoying splendid Easterlies around 15 knots and making great progress up the Delmarva coast. There are a total of 4 boats in this leg of the trip, all of us remaining in contact via either SSB or, in our case, VHF.

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