We thought we'd make Baltimore today, but Mother Nature had other plans. Even though we got up at 5:30 and left at the first crack of dawn, we didn't get very far until the predicted winds hit. If they'd been in back of us or at an angle, we could have made it, but as usual they were dead against us and getting stronger, so we ducked into Worton Cove. We were lucky to be close to a well-protected cove that was deep enough (barely) for us to get into.
There are three marinas in here, but only one responded when I tried calling them on the VHF. Unfortunately, it was the one farthest in. We had to plow through soft mud to get to it. If the bottom had been sand or rock, we wouldn't have made it.
Tied securely to an end dock (non-floating) and paid for two nights, as the storm is predicted to last all weekend. We're way out in the boonies here, about thirty miles from Baltimore, on the opposite side of the bay. There aren't any buses, and the nearest town is Chestertown, about 12 miles away. The grocery store here at the marina is closed for the winter, but there's a little grocery store a mile and a half from here. We were told to go out to the stop sign, turn right, and go straight down the road until we came to the store. Couldn't miss it. So we turned right at the stop sign, went about a block, and the road ended. We decided to turn left, since right would have taken us back to the water. The road twisted and turned and had lots of little roads going off to the side. We asked a woman if we were going in the right direction to get to the grocery store, but she said she didn't know. We passed a couple of big dogs that had apparently brought down a small deer. At least, they were devouring a deer carcass on their front lawn. One of the dogs came over to us wagging his tail, so we patted him, but the other dog was too busy chomping to pay any attention to us.
Eventually, we came to a highway, and the road we were on ended, so we turned to the right. Lo and behold, after all those turns, there was the little store about an eighth of a mile ahead of us! We bought some eggs and orange juice and potatoes. Then we started back.
As we were walking along Buck Neck Road, a man in a small truck pulled up and asked if we'd lost a mitten. Roy checked his pockets, and sure enough, one of his mittens was missing. The man had found it and hung it on the stop sign at Foreston Road. That was certainly nice of him. Roy was very glad to get his mitten back.
That was about the last good thing that happened to Roy today. On the boat, he plugged a drill into the new inverter, and the inverter immediately burned up. After some deliberation and rereading the manual, we decided that we should never use the inverter when we're connected to shore power.
Then Roy dug out a lot of spare parts and tools, and discovered that water had gotten to them and corroded them. He also found that a lot of the fluid had leaked out of the spare auto-pilot control that has never been used and cost $400. So this was not a very good day for Roy. But at least we're tied safe and sound to a dock while the wind rages about us.
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