Thursday, David’s sister, Kathie, brought us back to the boat with her SUV piled high with our provisions. She helped us unload and move back aboard. What a trooper xoxo

We spent Thursday night on IRENE in Oxford at Campbell’s Marina. They had done a wonderful job servicing her and gave us a thorough walk through of the work they had completed. What a different feeling when we set early yesterday morning without worrying about the engine temperature and a myriad of other little things.

Once outside Oxford and the Tred Avon River, we turned up into the Big Choptank River and we felt the dramatic impact of the south wind building up the Chesapeake. There were long rolling waves that continued to grow throughout the morning as we heading north up towards the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. After 4 hours we decided to pull into a marina to sit out the afternoon’s waves.

We found a marina just off the Chesapeake in Price Creek, Queen Anne’s Marina, on Kent Island (a few miles south of the bridge). Turns out that it is “home” to a lot of incredibly friendly and kind people. From a gentleman on a sailboat who helped us safely dock on a tricky T spot, to the marina manager Tina, sweetheart of kind hearts, who gave us her car to go out to lunch, everyone is nice. Especially sweet is the handsome family that played at their boat all day, crabbing, fishing, and picnicking; four littles with the world’s calmest mama. We could learn a lot from how gently and actively she leads her pack.

We thought we would be taking off again this morning however; the weather forecast has other plans for us. Also, since learning yesterday that Canada will not be reopening the border until at least July 21st, we feel less in a hurry and have opted to sit out a predicted bad weather afternoon here.

Since there are quite a few commercial fishing boats in and out of the creek, we will likely spend some time to watching them and then later, we will observe the storm- heavy rain with thunder and lightening. This will be our entertainment. Other than that, we will be planning the next legs of the trip, reading and enjoying life on IRENE.

PS: Received these images of Isla via text yesterday. Gotta love her style and smile.