The final post

We spent our last month in the Chesapeake Bay area, exploring its many rivers and creeks.   Marker buoys were popular nesting spots for osprey families.  Adults have a wing span of about six feet, so our up close views from the cockpit were ever so respectful.  The first five photos were taken along the Tred Avon River, near Oxford, Maryland.   It would have been easy to spend the whole summer there.

We spent time with a cruising friend, John LaBat, near Easton, Maryland. Dietrich worked with him for a day, building docks for landing kayaks.  We met John in the Bahamas, so this was a nice opportunity to see him in his home territory.  

The old Dickerson Boatworks is on La Trappe Creek, where we enjoyed one of our favorite anchorages, just off the Choptank River.  Our Suttons Bay friend, Tom Kelly, owns the S/V Cygnet, a Dickerson built boat. 

Dietrich discovered that a month in the Chesapeake was not easy on our inflatable dinghy.  He found barnacles and thick gunk that had to be scraped away,  taking some of the rubber surface down to fabric.  Oops...that is not a good thing.

We took so long coming up the coast, including days of weather delays, days in marinas for repairs, and mostly days having fun,  that we could not sail home in a timely way.  We had no interest in sailing back in a solid block of dawn to dusk days, so we quickly decided to opt for finishing the trip in Maryland.  We explored the deep rivers and creeks of the Eastern Shore  (Oxford, St. Michaels, and Cambridge were historic villages we enjoyed), ate crab and oysters in every form we could find, and actually relaxed.  

Annapolis was our last stop.  We anchored in Spa Creek for several days while we visited many cruising friends who are spending the summer there.  What a bonus...that community of people was so welcoming.  We also spent time with our friend Deb and her friend Peter, both of whom were generous with their guest rooms while we prepared the boat for travel and storage.  We toured the Naval Academy,  walked the old neighborhoods for hours, and just savored the salty atmosphere.  It was hard to leave.

Finally, we rented a car and took a meandering ride home.  We visited Annie's parents in Ohio,  friends Claudia and Jaynor in Ann Arbor,  and Dietrich had a photo shoot near Detroit.  We arrived home in the evening, on July 21st, 2009.  The cats acted as if we had never left.  

The boat was trucked from Annapolis and arrived the next morning.  It's in a storage yard, waiting to be unpacked.  We're still in a daze.   It was a colorful, exciting, humbling adventure we had and we are changed.  

Thanks for sticking with us this past year...and yes, we would do it again!