today’s trip was about thirty six miles in six hours, with an hour pit stop. We left San Domingo Creek by 7:30am and cut through Tilghman Island at a place called ‘the narrows’. This saved us some time so we didn’t have to go all the way back down and around the island. From the narrows to Herrington Harbor Marina is about ten miles. We had a fairly comfortable ride across and called the marina when we got close. We had to wait for a bit while other boats at the fuel dock finished, then they called us in. We docked behind another large yacht and commenced with filling our water tank, getting a pump out and topping off our tanks. The reason for stopping here was the price- it was $1.59/gallon, plus we got .10 cents off for a volume discount. We got just over three hundred gallons of diesel. We have had an issue, and I told the marina about it before we arrived, that we have to let the engine cool down before it will re-start. After doing all of the tank filling, I was hoping it had been long enough. Nope. It starts to turn over, then nothing, so we waited. I kept trying and it got a little better, but still wouldn’t start. I started the generator to see if the extra battery charge would help. Nope. We waited a little while longer, with the generator going and it eventually started right up. Whew. We shoved off and continued on our journey to find our anchorage. From the marina it was another fourteen miles or so to the anchorage. As we were following the channel to get there I called a sailboat that was in front of us and asked if he was familiar with the area. He responded ‘yes’ and I inquired about the anchorage. He said he was going there too and to follow him in. He told us about an island we could take the dog to and I was happy to have some local information. We made our way in and they veered off and anchored on one side, and we continued in a little deeper to get close to the island. There were a few other boats anchored around, but everyone was spread out. I wanted to be as close as possible as the dinghy engine is still broken. We found a spot and dropped anchor as close as we felt comfortable to the island. We hung out for a bit making sure the anchor was secured and noticed there were some people on the island hanging out. Since we didn’t want to be close to anyone, we decided to take Frank to the opposite side where we saw a small beach. I got in the dinghy and rowed us over. The beach was super small and not much room to walk or run. The island was covered in thorny bushes, so we were stuck there. After a short time, we got back in the dinghy and I rowed us to the other side where the people on the jet skies were. They were getting ready to leave and told us to be careful about the bird nest with eggs on the shore. That’s when we noticed a sign saying ‘Keep Off Island’. Shit. We let Frank do his business and retreated back to the boat. I started looking for outboard engine mechanics around and found some, but none were close to where we were. Hmmm. We made dinner and thought about what we could do to get the outboard fixed. We decided we would call around in the morning and see if there was anyone close enough or willing to pick it up…
As far as we know, people were skylarking at sea before they were larking on land.