Cold

Our friends June and Chris on Albion commented on my blog article when I complained about the cold here in Florida. They elected to spend the winter on board Albion at a dock in Annapolis Maryland. Here is what June wrote.

Well well let me tell you about the cold, and you can tell everyone else so that they feel better: We woke up this morning beset with ice. No water for tea because the pipes were frozen....(but I had an emergency gallon squirreled away) Of course we were concerned that if this continured that the pipes/hoses would burst..... it was only 8 degrees (F) last night.I hate to talk about "wind chill" degrees, but it was @ minus 10.

The marina had not yet put in "bubblers" -I think that should have been done 2 weeks ago because it's been frigid for that long and we've had ice. I don't just mean cold, I mean frigid(and remember I lived for 25 years in Maine before buying a boat, so I know winter!) It's been blowing hard for days....and that means the west wind blew out the water from Annapolis. We are sitting on the bottom in the mud. "High" tide looks like low tide(we have stationary docks, not floating docks so it's VERY noticeable) and at low tide I can't get off the boat-Chris manages to get up to the dock,but his legs are 2 inches longer-I still don't know how he does it. I have to wait for "high" tide and then it's still a little dodgy. The inside of Albion got up to 45 degrees today with the 3 electric heaters, but when I turned on the propane for 10 minutes it went up to 50. Ahhhh that's better!

Next year this time we will not be in the Chesapeake for sure.

Wow. I'm sure glad we didn't try to winter up north. Some years, when the winter weather is very mild, it might be OK, but not like that.