Rock Hall September 15 – The first day of our adventure began gray and drizzly.  Positively scurrilous weather.  How appropriate for our departure from our home of more than 20 years. Although we’ll be back home again in 6 – 8 months it is still both sad and exciting to be leaving our home behind. By the time we got the car packed the day had become clear and bright. Two hours after getting everything into the car we had to get it all out again and put it on the boat.  Chaos reigned as we tried to find a home for everything.  In order to get this picture Christopher had to find a set of charged batteries.  So that we won’t have to unpack the boat or rely on faulty memories every time we need something, like batteries, we have begun to keep an inventory on Christopher’s PC.

How else could we remember where we stashed the twelve rolls of paper towels stored in four different places, or the four jars of mustard, to name just two of the hundreds of items.  By 8 PM we all fell exhausted in the main salon.  Here at our slip in Rock Hall we have unlimited electricity so we watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.  Then, on this last day of summer we turned in beneath a moon so bright that it cast shadows.

On Saturday (9/16) Diana and I went out for a ride on one of our folding bicycles.  Along the way we found many caterpillars making their way across the road.  Diana thought of her friend Dana who recently lost her pet caterpillar.  We also got a very close look at a turkey vulture.  There are many of them on the Eastern Shore, but we only see them up in the sky.  This guy was on the ground in the trees by the side of the road.  He must have found a deliciously putrid bit of carrion in there.

On Sunday 9/17 Diana and I rowed over to her beach on the eastern side of Swan Creek.  Christopher rode his sail board down there to meet us.  We spent several hours digging in the sand.  You Bay sailors have cursed the hard clay on the bottom.  The kids found that it is great for adding some color to one's sand castle.

After two beautifully windy days we left for Still Pond in a dead calm and had to motor the whole way.  The purpose of this trip up the Bay 20 miles or so was to shake down the boat, brush the summer's algae off the bottom and scrape barnacles off the propeller and shaft.  This was also Diana's first day of 'boat-schooling'.  (We had done some at home before leaving.)  Christopher also did some calculus from the text they are using this year at Lehigh.  After all that work Captain Maria toasted her scurvy crew.  Afterwards we took the Captain in to the beach to toast mini-marshmallows.  For bringing such insipid marshmallows we almost voted her off the boat.  It will take some adjusting for everybody to get into the routine of life on board and spend time in both leisure and serious pursuits.

Today, 9/19, marks our first system problem on board.  After yesterday's long motor up from Rock Hall I noticed an odd smell in the cockpit locker, but didn't think anything special about it.  This morning one of our battery banks, the one we were NOT drawing on yesterday, measured only 11.9 volts.  The bank from which we had been drawing power measured 12.5 volts.  This is bad news.  A little detective work isolated the bad battery in the low voltage bank.  When we get back to Rock Hall we'll have to replace both batteries in that bank.  When in parallel all the batteries should be of the same make, size and vintage.