we woke to a lovely, cool breeze blowing over the waters and into the hatch of our little bow cabin. the anchor chain runs out from the bowsprit (the pointy thing stickin' out in the front of the boat), so when you are at anchor your bow is always pointed into the wind (i'm sure you can work that one out in your noggin ; )... so, since our cute little hatch (that's the openy thing on the roof of our cabin) is pointed forward, we get a nice breeze throught it! nice, huh!? anyways, when i went up on deck it was an amazing view of the water (there you go, nola, i'm talking about the water ; ) of the bay with a jelly our two lazily drifting by. over to shore there were a few cozy cottages surrounded by green lawns and billowy green trees. i think it is very kind of folks to allow us to camp out in their beautiful, watery backyards. kind of reminds me of canoeing down the minnehaha creek with erick and anders last spring. over the stern (back of the boat) and across the water a ways there was a wildlife refuge with inlets and penninsulas(sp?) all along the unpopulated shore. best of both worlds! our Creator's nature and people's God given creative abilities.
we decided to head over to st. micheal's to check out that quant, historic port, and eat some crabs from "the crab claw" restaurant, which some friends from herrington harbor suggested. they said you really haven't toured the chesapeake until you've had a pile of crabs dumped on your table by the waitresses there. however, we had to wait for favorable tides to go there, so while we waited we took care of a few chores around the boat, one of which took me to the top of the mast. that was great fun! papa jerr bear and cap'n pam took turns hoisting me up there by way of the main halyard (that's the line (rope) that you hoist the mainsail up with). quite an unusual and fun veiw of cricket. i'll post some pictures on facebook, if i can find a way.
in the afternoon we left our anchorage and headed south to st. micheals. i'm not ashamed to say that we "ran aground" in the good, goopy chesapeake mud on our way to more open waters. there's a saying amoung sailors (especially chesapeake bay sailors) that goes something like, "there are two kinds of sailors. those who have run aground, and those that lie and say they've never run aground." we proudly joined that first group today, and had a fairly easy time getting off the bottom. we had a perfect tail wind and were able to sail "wing on wing." mainsail off to the port side (left, facing forward), and our big jib (sail in the front of the boat) sticking out on the staboard (right side of the boat facing forward). cricket did wonderfully, once again! it's amazing to me when you simply adjust this and that, and the wind and water's Masters and cricket do the rest! what a deal! we even learned a few new tricks that'll come in handy when pam and i make the big sailing trip.
we eventually found another cozy anchorage, and took jimminy (cricket's little dinghy) to town, observed how sweetly cozy the streets in town were (very), and got our fingers and faces full of crab goop. we even managed to get a little crab meat into out mouths. we'll definately be going back to that port to check out the town when we've got more time. we dinghyed back to cricket in the dark of night, and only bottomed the outboard out a couple times in the mud. exciting times.
when we got back to cricket we found three things. one: our anchor light doesn't work (that's a light on the top of the mast to let other boats know you're there in the dark of night). we'll have to look into that later. two: the boat had swung 180 degrees while we were gone. no big deal. just interesting... sort of. and three: and best of all, dear owen came out to greet us when we pulled the dinghy up to the side of the boat. couldn't have had a better welcome home!
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