Held Up

Canoe Neck Creek
N 38 15.589 W 076 43.734

Tuesday
We had a great time in Washington. We could have done more; much more. We could have gone to the mint, the archives, the Supreme Court, or even the zoo. 30 plus years ago, we had a wonderful time at the Washington zoo with our kids. But fatigue caught up with us. We're tired of so much walking. Therefore, following our custom, when you have had enough of one place, pull up the anchor and go someplace else. So that's what we did. As an additional incentive there was a nice breeze that would
move us right along. Farmers must make hay while the sun shines, and sailors must make way while the wind blows.

Our departure though was much slower than we thought. We had to wait until 10:30 to connect with the dock master at the yacht club to pay our bill. Then we had to buy fuel ($2.99/gallon for diesel. Wow!) Then we moved down the river toward the Woodrow Wilson bridge. When we got close enough to see, we spotted a construction barge moored directly under the bridge span. Oh no! I got on the phone and talked to the project engineers again. I learned that we could pass under only after 17:30,
at the end of the day when the work was done and they had time to move the barge. Oh well. We dropped the anchor and waited for five and a half hours. We had no choice.

After passing the bridge the wind was gone, so we just motored until it was getting dark. The winds were so light that we didn't need to find a real anchorage. We just dropped the hook where we were right in the middle of the river. Tonight we are at yet another one of those wonderful little side creeks. By tomorrow night we'll be in Solomons Maryland, a place where we can get WiFi, and buy groceries, and to get a mail package that Jennifer mailed to us (general delivery) a while back.

We only manage to connect with mail once every 4 to 8 weeks. The problem is our vagabond life style. Most of the time we don't know where we'll be 5 days in advance, nor do we know if we'll stay where we are more than 24 hours in advance. That make it hard for Jennifer to know where to forward mail to or when. She generally pays extra for priority mail but even that takes 3-5 business days. Once we had to wait for mail to arrive, and that annoyed us greatly. Another time we didn't wait and departed
before the mail arrived and thus lost the mail forever. It would be much easier if we still lived in Sweden. In Sweden essentially all mail (at least 97%) posted before dinner is delivered before noon the next morning. It is as if all mail were Fedex express.

Today, Tuesday, is also a sunny light-wind day, so we're motoring the whole day. We've seen only three other vessels the whole day. I took advantage of the lack of traffic and our distance from shore to take a sun shower. We have a device called a sun shower that I bought in Alaska. You fill it with water and let it sit in the sun and bingo! in a couple of hours it's delightfully warm. It was about 42C (114F) and it felt wonderful.