All Hands On Deck   Adventures on land and at sea

Why do I always leave everything till the last minute when it’s time to leave? Ocean City has been nice. It’s kept Lee and I entertained for the past few days while we wait for our new alternator. Now we’re all spread out, settled in, and spoiled by things like internet and nice showers. Tomorrow we have to install the new alternator, do tons of laundry, put away the dinghy + engine, bike to get groceries and then put away the bikes, make Pirat seaworthy again, get diesel, and take naps in preparation for an all-nighter.

The plan is to leave here around 4 or 4:30pm, sail through the night and arrive in Norfolk, VA by noon on Saturday. That way we do the trickiest parts of the passage (leaving here and arriving in an unfamiliar spot) during daylight. This is a technique that will undoubtedly come in handy in the Caribbean, where we’ll be sailing similar distances and arriving in new places all the time.

Alternator wise, we should be set. The place we took our old one declared it unfixable and offered to sell us a new one for more than 3 times the cost it should have been. Lee decided to order a new alternator online and have it 2-day shipped (still 1/3 the cost from the local shop). We managed to get the old alternator back but were very unhappy with Edward’s Marine in West Ocean City. What ever happened to customer service?

During our stay here we explored via a few good runs and biked around. The rest of the time we pretty much sat around and stared at computer screens. I did some baking. On the one night it rained, we chose to walk to a local crab house for dinner. Their Maryland style crab chowder was delicious – very spicy!

Today we took the dinghy over to Assateague Island, which is right across the harbor. We didn’t see any ponies but we were the only people on the huge beach. There weren’t even any footprints in the sand. Two black lumps on the beach turned out to be bald eagles. They flew off over the ocean as we approached.

Now it’s time to watch a movie. We’re plugged in to shore power so we don’t have to worry about the energy the TV uses. I’ll sign off with a few of our own movies. I finally got around to uploading these snippets from our past few passages.

The first is from NYC, where the 79th St. Boat Basin docks were particularly entertaining. The second video shows a few of the smaller waves we encountered between New York and Atlantic City. Lee took the last video of me reading my kindle and enjoying my tea on the morning of our sail to Cape May. I’m talking but you can’t hear me. I have no idea what I’m saying.