Days 360- 363

Deltaville VA - Solomons Island MD

• Start 6:25 AM
• End 1:10 PM
• Underway 7:10 Hours
• Distance 56 Miles
• Total Miles on Trip 5808
• Av Speed 7.9 knots
• Weather Sunny, 82 Degrees, Wind 6 Knots WSW

With a long run ahead of us, and wanting to get travel before the winds pick up we left at 6:30am. Ed & Cathy (Just Another Day) joined Mark & Karen (Kay Dee) and Angel & I as we headed to Solomons Island.

There was a lot of confusion in our destination one we got to Solomons Island. Originally we had made reservations for Spring Cove Marina, Mark and Karen had stayed there last year and it is a nice marina and centrally located. While we were at Deltaville the Doug, the Solomons Island Harbor Host reached out to us and suggested that we stay at Solomons Island Yacht Club. Since the Yacht Club was much cheaper that the marina, we all agreed to go there. Marked looked up the phone number and made our reservations, and gave the number to Ed & Cathy. About half way to Solomons Island, Cathy questioned our destination and Mark realized that we had reservations for Solomons Island Yachting Center, not the Yacht Club. After several phone calls, texts and radio calls we finally resolved everything and changed our reservations to the Yacht Club.

Our first order of business when we arrived at Solomons Island was to fuel up the boats. Angel and I had made several phone calls as we were traveling to check on fuel prices. We called several marinas at each of our next three stops and Spring Cove had the best fuel price. We could travel several more days without fueling up, but have learned to fuel up whenever we find the lowest price fuel

After fueling up, we headed to the yacht club. There is no dock master or dock hands at the yacht club, just members that volunteer to help. We were greeted and assisted in to our slip by Butch and Mike, who also help Mark & Karen, then Ed and Cathy into their slips. Several other loopers arrived after we did, it appears that Doug has been doing a great job reaching out to loops and letting them know about their yacht club. It is a great deal for both the loopers and the yacht club.

After everyone was settled in, we headed up to the club house to have docktails at their bar. The yacht club lured us all there when we checked in, by giving every boat a coupon for two free drinks, then they keep you there with their hospitality and cheap drink prices. They are a very active club with 200 members and a five year waiting list to become a member.

Monday the first thing I did was to head to urgent care, my eye did improve some, but it was still red and swollen. They did confirm it was pink eye and prescribed an antibiotic cream. Overall both Angel and I consider ourselves lucky. Both of our trips to Urgent Care were for minor issues. We know of several loopers that have had much more serious medical problems.

After going to the doctors we met up with Mark & Karen and went to the Calvert Maritime Museum. The museum tells the story of the Chesapeake Bay, complete with an original lighthouse. Monday night we headed back to the clubhouse for docktails. This time family, that was travel stopped by and joined us for docktails. After docktails we went out to dinner. We love having friends and family visit us and share our adventure.

Monday night was a wild night on the boat. The yacht club is directly off the bay and when the wind picked up it brought the rough water right to docks. We rocked and rolled all night long and were banging into the dock pilings. Tuesday morning Mark & Karen's helped us put out even more fenders and lines. We were on the outside of the dock, and the wind was pushing us into the dock. We also decided that based on what we were seeing and the forecast for Wednesday, we would stay here to Thursday. Our original plans were to travel half way to Annapolis on Wednesday, then Thursday go the rest of the way. Instead we will stay put Wednesday and make it to Annapolis in one day. Tuesday was just a lazy rainy day on the boat.

Wednesday the rain stopped and the sun came out so we decide to ride our bikes to Calvert Cliffs State Park. I had been there many years ago, scuba diving and looking for fossils. I had come with a group of people and we were able to park fairly close to the cliffs, and walk below the cliffs. I wrongly assumed we could still do that. You are no longer allowed to walk along the bottom of the cliffs, and after riding the bikes 6 miles we would have had to hike 1.8 miles to the beach, we decided to go back to the boats. For dinner we joined the yacht club for a pizza party. The pizza party is a members only event, but they very gracious in inviting all of the loopers as well.

Our next stop is Annapolis, a 45 mile trip.