September 01-07, 2000 -- Ruth Part 2 or Heading to Washington DC

September 1-7, 2000 -- Ruth Part 2 or Heading to Washington DC On September 1, we moved from Oxford to the St. Mary's river. There was very little in the way of wind and rain! This was the first time in about 5 days that we had no rain. It was beautiful, though the clouds kept playing hide the sun on us! We checked in on the Cruiseheimer's Net, as per usual, and were called during boat to boat traffic by Andante. They are anchored in the Yecomico river, having just moved across the Potomac from the St. Mary's. We dropped anchor in Horse Shoe Bend and settled down to do a few things. I was about to crawl in the engine room when ling ling died. We determined quickly that we had sucked a jelly fish. We tried to fire up Tink, with no luck, so I dove on the sea strainer. I managed to clear it, and on the way, also ran a brush over the knot log. At the same time, since Mike was in the engine room, he also twisted the knot log as well. That fixed Ling Ling, and we then fixed Tink as well, the same design flaw surfaced again! The relays just do not stay seated well. On September 2, Ling Ling died again just as I was about to fix breakfast! We switched over to Tink, and he also died. However, he was easy to fix, and we were able to cook breakfast. Once again, I dove on the sea strainer and cleared the jelly fish gunk. We also decided to pull out. After a quick debate, and a discussion with Andante, we decided to move to the Yecomico River. On our way out, we noticed that the Blue guitar had the same problem with their generator, since they had a dive suit drying on the deck. A short motor later, we arrived in the Yecomico. We dropped our dinghy and headed over to Andante where we met Don and Becky. Next we headed into the little marina where we met Bob and Brenda on Lionheart. We also picked up a new American Flag since ours had taken quite a bit of abuse in the winds the previous days. We planned for cocktails. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm formed over us and refused to abate so we canceled cocktails. On September 3, we started cleaning the stainless and attempted to unzip the zippers on the bimmi so we could retighten our solar panels. The canvas shop put aluminum zippers on and they have corroded beyond the ability to be used! However, I did manage to get the solar panels retightened. Just as I finished with the solar panels, Bob called and asked if we wanted to run to West Marine. Since there were some things we were looking to pick up, I went with him. That evening, we had Andante and Lionheart over for cocktails. We had a blast of an evening, albeit a late one. On September 4, we put up the dinghy in preparation for leaving. Then, we relocated the regulators for the 12 volt alternators to the utility room where we will be better able to monitor them. We spent the rest of the day chilling out and watching a movie. We heard Barry & Sandy on Oneway (Mike's brother and sister-in-law) on the radio so Mike called them. They stopped by it was good to see them. They had Little Barry with them, he is 17 months old now. On September 5, we got up at about 2:30 when the wind kicked up, stayed up most of the night making sure we did not drag anchor. Because we had already had a long day, we decided not to leave. We spent the day napping and watching movies. On September 6, we tried to leave, but stopped when we had winds of 30 knots on the beam as we cleared the entrance to the Yecomico. There was a 3 foot chop in the mouth of the river and spray was hitting us! We decided it was too cold to attempt passage, so we turned around and dropped anchor in a more protected area. It is amazing what 200 yards will do for TV reception as well as cell signal. We were able to check our e-mail and veg in front of the TV the rest of the day. It was much to ugly to do anything else. On September 7, we made the run up the river. It started out with 20-25 knots of wind, but the seas were down a bit so off we went! We had a great motor sail for the first couple of hours. However, the range was live below the 301 bridge, so we had to make a small adjustment to our course. By that time, the wind had died, and we had to put away our sails anyway. The new course will come in handy when we head out of DC! We arrived at the Woodrow Wilson bridge around 1900 GMT. We dropped the hook, had dinner and took a nap. We went through the bridge at 0400 GMT (midnight) and tied up at CYC at 0600 GMT (2:00 am)