Mer Sea

We had a lovely time in Baltimore, in spite of getting bad news about our generator. The word from the mechanic at the marina that did the work on Mer Sea this summer is that the problem seems to involve the main computer control board for the generator. Onan tells us that there are none of these anywhere in the entire company throughout the USA, and that they won’t be available until late October – and we know what that means…don’t be looking for them Oct. 30!!! So our choices are to just do our best to make things work without the generator, which makes anchoring out much less appealing (no morning coffee, no stove, oven, microwave, air conditioning, or battery charging), or stay put and wait. We chose option one.

 

In the meantime, we enjoyed much of what Baltimore has to offer, and got ourselves provisioned for the coming cruise. We had a lovely day trip to the White Rocks marina for lunch, took the bus, with lots of help from bus drivers and passengers, to the Inner Harbor to see a couple of great Imax movies at the Science Center, and enjoyed a fabulous fireworks display from the upper deck of Mer Sea right at Anchorage Marina (we think they originated at Fort McHenry, although we still don’t know why). I did some major planning so that we could cover the territory on the Eastern Shore of the Bay that we wanted to cover and be back in the Chester River area to meet my parents at the end of the month. Also tried to figure when to anchor out (cheaper) and when to stay at a marina (creature comforts and POWER).

 

All that being done, we set off for our first destination: the West River, below Annapolis, where we planned to anchor and use the dinghy to go to the small town of Galesville. The anchorage we chose proved to be stunningly picturesque, with one other trawler in the anchorage with us, and MANY sailboats on moorings and at docks all around us. We have discovered unequivocally that the Chesapeake is sailboat territory – we are definitely outnumbered! At this anchorage we also had a lovely view of the few houses that surrounded the little cove. We had fun exploring the little village of Galesville, and then headed back to the boat for dinner and a relaxing evening.

 

The next day we crossed the Bay and anchored in La Trappe Creek, an isolated and well-protected anchorage off the Choptank River. There is a sandy spit of land that protects the entrance to the creek, and there were a couple of groups of boats rafted together up against the shore, enjoying swimming and frolicking between boats. I sat on the swim platform of Mer Sea after we anchored and dangled my feet in the water – ah, bliss!! This was an anchorage with nowhere to go, just solitude and peace to enjoy, and we did. It was beautiful!! The only wrinkle was the heat, which we couldn’t escape, but it wasn’t bad on top of Mer Sea, where, in spite of the sun, the breeze kept us comfortable.

 

The next morning I found out the other problem: without the generator, our batteries don’t charge enough underway to last for two nights anchoring. The voltage had dropped to just below 12 volts, at which point the refrigerator shuts off and of course begins to defrost, and every time we use anything that pulls power the voltage drops precipitously. I think this problem exists because we use the computer on an inverter while underway, and our 17” monitor draws lots of juice, so the batteries don’t get charged as fully as they normally would underway because we’re constantly sucking juice. This wouldn’t be a problem if we could run the battery charger using the generator when we got to an anchorage, but we can’t do that right now. So it looks like one night out, one night at a marina, until we can get this thing fixed. Oh well…

 

The next day we headed to Cambridge. I’ve always heard about Oxford, Cambridge, and St. Michael’s, MD, and have never been to any of them, so I was excited. Roy continues to do an excellent job docking, and we made it into the marina with no problems. Turns out there’s not much to see in Cambridge, but we found a West Marine on the net and decided to walk there. We did stroll through a lovely area near the waterfront – beautiful old, renovated homes - but that was really all there was that was worth looking at. The little old downtown area seemed to us to have come upon hard times, and at 3:30 on a Monday afternoon, what WAS there was closed!

 

Well, we found the West Marine, out on the main highway leading into town, after quite a hike, and had a good time there talking with the sales associate. He was able to help us find what we needed, and he also recommended a restaurant for dinner. We made the long walk back to the marina in good spirits with some stuff for the boat and thoughts of a dinner out in our heads.

 

The name of the restaurant the West Marine guy had recommended is the Suicide Bridge Restaurant. It’s quite well known in those parts, and there’s a bit of a story surrounding the unusual name. Check out the link at the end of this journal. The only thing is that the restaurant proved to be closed on Mondays, so we would have to wait until tomorrow to try it out.

 

Tuesday dawned bright and sunny, just adding to a string of perfect days on the Chesapeake! We had guests on board in the morning – Mer Sea draws a lot of attention, and we are always willing to invite people aboard and give them a tour if they’re interested. This morning it was one guy who was from Marathon, FL, in the keys, and another from Cambridge, MD. The poor guy from the keys was anxiously watching hurricane Rita on the TV screen tearing through his home area, so welcomed the diversion of touring a boat. We spent a bit of time chatting with these amiable fellows, and then moved on to more mundane chores like doing laundry and making reservations at the restaurant, etc. We found a taxi that would take us to the restaurant for $15 each way. It seemed like a lot until we made the trip later that night, at which point we felt we’d gotten a real bargain. We’d been told it was about 7 miles, but it was sure a LONG 7 miles!

 

The restaurant turned out to be GREAT! I had a hankering for some steamed crabs, and had read that these had been rated “best on the Bay” by one of the local publications. I wouldn’t dispute the rating - they were delicious! I started out with a cup of oyster stew, and I swear there were 8 or more oysters in the little cup along with cream and butter. Delicious!! Roy had an equally satisfying meal of crab dishes loaded with big chunks of backfin crabmeat. The service was friendly and attentive without being overly so, and the bill was modest. We couldn’t have been happier!!

 

The next day we pushed on to Oxford, which was just as charming and “Mayberryesque” as all the cruising guides promised. Not glitzy, mind you, still a quiet, somewhat sleepy town, but absolutely lovely and lovingly cared for by the residents. We spent a bit of time in the little museum there, chatting with the curator, did some shopping, and just enjoyed strolling around the town. I should say village, it’s really compact. The residents are uniformly friendly and helpful. We noted the town park along the waterfront, which is what I think a park should be: grassy, with lovely big old trees with picnic tables under them, benches by the water, a swing set, and plenty of trash bins scattered around. Not a ballfield in sight!!!! Come evening, we participated with the locals in the main evening activity: we walked to the park to sit on a bench and watch the sun set over the water. It was great!

 

The next day we walked to the store again and I bought a book, Beautiful Swimmers, about crabs and the Chesapeake, which I remember Gammy extolling many years ago, probably when it first came out. I’m adding this to my collection of books on board for future reading. Our final activity was to get ice cream cones and walk across the street to the park to sit and eat them, and bid farewell to Oxford.

 

Our continuing generator problems had led us to alter our plans to meet with an Onan mechanic to get a second opinion about why we can’t start the generator. We left Oxford to anchor out near Tilghman Island, where we were scheduled to meet the mechanic the next morning. We’d been anchored in Baby Owl Cove (how could I resist such a name for an anchorage??) for about an hour on Thursday after traveling a couple of hours from Oxford, when the mechanic called on our cell phone and told us that he had a problem and wouldn’t be able to see us until Monday! Fortunately, he was able to recommend someone else, who just happened to be…in Oxford! So we called and made arrangements and planned to be up and underway at oh-dark-hundred to get there to meet him the next morning.

 

Up we got the next morning, and traveled our same course in reverse (at least I didn’t have to work out the navigation information for this leg…) back whence we’d come. We pulled up at the boatyard, and got the mechanic to come and take a look. After poking around and spending some time trying to get the thing going, he pronounced that it was the main computer controller – the same problem we’d been told of before – so that was that – the diagnosis had been confirmed. Unfortunately, since Onan says they won’t have any of those before the end of OCTOBER!!!!!!!!!!! Ah, well…the joys of boating……Onward to St. Michael’s…

 

Here’s a link to the Suicide Bridge Restaurant, where you can read about the legend, etc.