A short while ago we had a break in our very busy retirement schedule (hahaha) and made an impromptu decision to take Breeze On out for five days. It is the first time we have spent more than a single night on her since April. We sailed to the western shore of the Chesapeake, heading first to the Rhode River.
We took the Porta-Bote with us. George had used our Hot Knife to cut into the transom a bit more so that the outboard would fit better. He had also tightened up a bolt which was the likely cause of a slow leak we noticed the first time we used the Porta-Bote. We were able to assemble the Porta-Bote on the foredeck, although I wasn't as good a help our friend Doug was last month. The outboard fit better than before but the transom could use a little more tweaking. The boat stayed dry, no more leak. We loved how fast the Porta-Bote went. We were able to explore much more territory than we cover in our inflatable dinghy. The Porta-Bote is roomy, really comfortable and handles chop much more smoothly than the inflatable. The only issue was that the black seats got really hot in the sun. I am currently making cushioned seat covers that will Velcro onto the seats. That should take care of the problem.
During a day of very nice wind we sailed up to the Magothy River and spent a night at an anchorage known as Eagle's Nest, aka Horse Farm. We towed the dinghy and found that it tracked really well behind us. After using the dinghy to explore around Gibson Island we hauled it back onto the foredeck and disassembled it. The next morning we sailed down the bay back to the Choptank. The wind was in the 20's, gusting to 30 knots. At one point we were moving at over 10 knots! (Albeit with the current). We spent one more night out, anchored in Trappe Creek. We noticed our friends Sue and Gord entering the anchorage on their boat, Unity and invited them to join us for sundowners in the evening.
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