Ahhh … The weather in September can be so wonderful! Do we stay for most of the month & enjoy Connecticut’s beautiful late summer weather? Or, do we get going as we know the 2nd half of September can become … or challenging? Well, we certainly made the right decision this year!

About to pass the UN with the World Trade Center (appearing) tiny to its right. The next week this portion of the East River would be wall-to-wall USCG, NYPD, NYFD & unmarked military-looking vessels, with accompanying complete closures on “important” UN session days.

The evening of 9/11, viewing the twin light beams (but appearing single from 12 miles away) while anchored near Atlantic Highlands, NJ.

A gorgeous sunrise heading offshore from NY/NJ.

A satisfying sunset 11 hours later in Cape May, NJ. A smooth & easy 114 nautical miles.

The next day brought us 90 miles up the Delaware, through the C & D Canal & partially down the Chesapeake to Great Oak Landing Marina. With remarkably perfect timing, we had a 1 – 3 knot current with us the entire day which made arrival at the marina before closing time much easier. The unique feature here is a popular beach bar right at the very narrow S-turn entrance (to the left) with strong current & room for only one boat at a time. The drinking crowd (standing on the beach only feet away) cheer (or boo) each passing boat with extra hooting when one runs aground. Yes, some of those go-fast boats have SIX outboards.

While most of our usual stops are on the western shore (Annapolis, Baltimore, Eastport, Deltaville, etc.) we planned a couple of stops on the quieter eastern shore, which surprisingly, is mostly farmland. Even though a 3-hour ride up the Chester River, we really enjoyed Chestertown several years ago (pictured during their annual Schooner Festival). A cute little town, very walkable with lots of history, a fantastic bakery, chocolate shop, cheese shop, natural foods store, misc shops and great restaurants.

The Watershed Alley Restaurant was a great choice for a special birthday dinner for Lori!

Passing the USCG EAGLE off Annapolis.

Continuing our eastern shore adventures, we stopped (anchored) briefly in St. Michaels which wins the prize for the most restaurants & even its own rum distillery.

Our last eastern stop was Cambridge, Maryland. Unknown to us the day we arrived, the park adjacent to the marina was the Maryland IRONMAN Triathlon start/end with 1,200 participants & thousands of spectators (note the sign in the upper lefthand corner). For us, however, the highlight of Cambridge was stopping by their crab cannery which for over 100 years, has been processing local crabs into lump crab meat. We bought a pound & thoroughly enjoyed it for the next week in scrambled eggs, on pizza, in the excellent Cream of Crab Soup from Chestertown, on shrimp, added as extra on crabcakes, etc. It was fresh & fantastic!

Smoke billowing from an electrical cabinet is never good. We noticed a terrible burning smell right after starting our generator, which at least narrowed the cause down to a likely 120-volt source. The culprit was this 120-volt exhaust fan. Beginning to end was only about 2 minutes so not even time to panic! Especially anchored out you’re pretty much on your own – if a fire were to start aboard, you have only minutes to find & extinguish it, as fiberglass burns really hot & fast.

Every journey needs at least one problem (o.k. – this was #2). One of our VHF radios stopped receiving well – not a big problem as we have two, but this VHF also receives & transmits AIS signals (which display our boat on other boats’ chartplotters & other boats on ours). The wiring here is especially messy as this raceway leads to our cabin top, which 20 years of owners have added/changed solar panels, lighting, radar, TV satellite dome, over-air TV antenna, cellphone boosters, wifi boosters, etc. The reception problem was almost certainly an antenna problem, so I checked the antenna itself, traced the wiring removing wall panels, tested every connector, etc. – with no problems found. Three days later, the ASSumption (as in making an ass of myself) caught up with me. I ASSumed the VHF radio on the starboard side of the helm was connected to the starboard side antenna – NOPE! After 3 days of searching, tightening the antenna connector (on the correct antenna) was a 10-minute fix.

We’re certainly glad we left CT a bit early, as we’re safely anchored in Solomons, Maryland during this northeaster. While it will take a few days before the Chesapeake calms down from its 4′ waves, if we were still in CT or NY waiting to come down the NJ coast, our wait would be much longer while those 12′ waves backed down to a more comfortable 2′.

While inconvenient, a week-long delay for some weather issue every fall is pretty common, so we are actually right on our average schedule. Fortunately, we got to spend time with our good friends Ann & Mike and sweet Spot while in Solomons.

We’ll soon head south down the final 90 miles to the Hampton/Norfolk area, which will put Twin Sisters at the official beginning of the 1,000-mile (mostly) protected ICW into Florida.