Sunday, December 26, 1993 - Colonial Beach

The wind blew pretty hard most of the day, but it was a lovely, clear, sunny day. Cold though. Temperature in the 20's. Wind chill brought it down to about zero. No snow here as yet.
I put on my winter coat and walked to the grocery store again. This time, I walked along the beach and boardwalk. Great view of the river. This must be a popular place in the summer.
The grocery store had great prices. It was hard to resist stocking up, but I hadn't brought the wagon, so I could only buy as much as I could carry. In fact, just barely made it back with all the stuff I bought. Radioed Roy again, and he came out and let me in.
There are a couple of other people here at the marina. They came by and said hello when we were eating lunch.
In the afternoon, it was Roy's turn to go for a walk, so I stayed on the boat. Updated the log and plotted our course up the river to Washington.
Perhaps I should explain at this point that it's about thirty miles from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., by land. We could have stayed in Baltimore another day and taken the Metro (subway) to Washington. On an express train, it probably would have taken about half an hour. But by boat, we had to go seventy or eighty miles down Chesapeake Bay to the Potomac River, and then another sixty or seventy miles up the river to Washington. Look on the map and you'll see what I mean. Even without the delay caused by the gale, it would have taken us at least four days to reach Washington by boat. And then, of course, it will take two more days to get back down the Potomac to Chesapeake Bay. But that's what cruising's all about.
When we checked the tide tables, we made the disconcerting discovery that we had come in during an exceptionally high tide. This means we might not be able to get out. We went through areas where the water was less than six feet deep. If the tide is a few inches lower going out, we'll go aground. But we have no choice but to try. High tide tomorrow is at 12:50, so we'll leave around 11:00. That way, if we go aground, we'll have a chance of floating free as the tide comes in.