See ya later, New England! (in Baltimore, MD)

Gosh it’s nice to have New England behind us! Don’t get me wrong — Maine in September and October is hard to beat.

Anchorages to yourself, crisp mornings that make running the Webasto feel extra cozy, and an excuse to build an enclosure (my “plastic palace”) are all perks that you don’t get in August 🙂

But November? November is the month to move on and get outta dodge before the weather pins you in place for weeks at a time.

As it was we had a serious storm in Newport — see last post — compounded by a dead alternator (really not fun when you’re cold and it’s stormy!).

Just when that was behind us, our fuel issues flared up again — engine RPMs hunting and sputtering, a sound that literally causes me full-body fear now.

Jon had already added clean outs, emptied and cleaned the fuel tank, replaced all our fuel lines and upgraded our Racor to “solve” this issue in Maine so to have it back, again, was… disheartening!!!

Thankfully we finally found the *actual* cause this time around — a teeny tiny screen in the corner of the fuel pickup that was nearly 100% clogged (and completely useless, given the hidden, inaccessible, un-maintainable location of it!!).

But all’s well that ends well, and we just made the jump from Newport, Rhode Island down to the Delaware and then through the C&D Canal, something we hadn’t done before.

Lately Zephyr and I have been somewhat seasick for the first 24 hrs of any passage, but this time we both stayed 100% good — maybe because it was constantly so rough in Newport that our stomachs thought we were at sea??

A silver lining to a rather rough anchorage 🙂

In the worst moments of the passage (bashing our way upwind, yuck) Zephyr asked if this was a storm too? Not in a fearful way, but more a factual, cataloguing of experiences way. Kids’ brains are so interesting.

Now we’re happily in Baltimore at Anchorage Marina — a super nice place with the cruiser’s dream: a West Marine and Safeway across the street.

Next up: keep going South!


Comments

See ya later, New England! (in Baltimore, MD) — 6 Comments

  1. I’m curious… on the chart it looks like you were planning on going further south while still outside… not much more distance to Norfolk… why the hard right turn up the Delaware? Love the continuity of your posts (Z eating the cookies he was promised last post). Thanks Leah!

    • We were fighting the dang W winds the whole way — the hard right was when we gave up and motored 🙂 This is our 4th time doing this coast, so we’ve been trying to make new stops when we can — every other time we’ve gone direct to Norfolk, so the Delaware it was! It’s been beautiful so far, but I think I’d just go to Norfolk next time haha!!

  2. Blowing a gale in Charleston this weekend and storm warnings offshore. Lots of cruisers pulled into our marina and also some anchored out just days before this storm hit. One of the roughest weekends we have had in a long time. If you pull into Charleston and I will drive you to the store!

    • We heard about that — sounds like lots of ICW bridges have been closed too, so you know it’s a real blow! Would love to see you guys and take you up on that drive! 🙂

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