The Baltimore Washington D.C. Corridor

We have spent the last week and half visiting Baltimore, Annapolis and Washington D.C., the latter by car. Baltimore was a neat stop as one is able to anchor right in the middle of downtown as the channel dead ends there. We visited the National Aquarium there, enjoying the Amazon exhibit which took us back to our days in Brazil. We then proceeded to Annapolis, with a short stop in the Magothy river. Annapolis is truly a boaters dream. It is part college town due to the Naval Academy, meaning lots of places to eat and drink, combined with a huge selection of marine services. While we were in Annapolis we rented a car and drove to Washington D.C. for two days, taking in the Natural History and Air and Space Museum and walking all of the Mall as well as to the White House. I attempted to lend my counsel as to the since failed 700 billion bail out plan, but was rebuffed at the gates.

It has been a bit surreal to watch from afar as the financial debacle unfolds, afar simply because we cannot get access to updated information as often, so we can go several days which can seem like a lifetime in the current fast moving environment. We have also been lucky with one of our banks, Washington Mutual, in the middle of it all, but thankfully rescued.

We are enjoying the Chesapeake, although it is a little shallow so we are constantly on watch when going in and our of the various harbors. We will probably spend another two weeks or so in the bay before going to the ICW.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Things that Work or Do Not

During our trip back to Washington State we had some work done on Nikita, the big item was getting the autopilot to work correctly. The autopilot would turn off and on at random intervals. I need to back up though. We had been dealing with two systems that were giving us fits, firs the SSB and second the Autopilot. Both of these systems were not working when we took delivery of the boat. However, upon advise of the contracted electronics firm (the same one that installed the wrong size regulator on our DuoGen and caused the fire! and yet remains nameless) we were assured that both were working fine.....

After two months of trying everything on the SSB, calling Icom, calling Hallberg Rassy, we finally found a gentleman (owner of Elco Electronics in Boston) to come and look at the SSB - 20 minutes later after switching the SSB and DSC antennas we had a working SSB, he was embarrassed at the ease of the solution and charged us a nominal fee. If in the Boston area with need of electronics work please send your business to Elco. Now one could argue I should have been able to discern the same problem.... or well anyway this was a big deal as the SSB is our primary communications tool, including sending this blog update via email.

With the Autopilot we were able to work around the issue using other control methods, but still was annoying. The yard in Stamford was asked to look at the issue and discovered a fluctuating current at the autopilot controller, after shipping to Raymarine and having it reinstalled it works perfectly and nice relief.

So while knocking on lots of wood, crossing fingers and praying I am not putting a jinx .... I think we have everything working as intended. I guess that was the whole point of a shakedown cruise over the summer, I would just have preferred the shake down without any problems!

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Catching Up from the Sassafras

We left Nikita in Stamford, previously a home for us for about 3 years, while we traveled back to Washington State to visit family. It was enjoyable to be around our families again, especially watching the kids interact with their cousins. We experienced quite a bit of luck, missing Hannah which blew through while we were gone, seemingly doing very little damage but I am sure would have created much anxiety had we been on the boat.

On our return to Stamford we were greeted by Nikita still on the hard without all of the commissioned work done yet. So we had one night sleeping on the boat on the hard and spent the following day hustling the yard staff to complete the work. We then had a nice weather window for Wednesday that would close Thursday for a few days. So we headed out and sailed 215 km (29 hour trip) to the mid point on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. The trip was a mixed bag; the trip down through NY was fun, seeing all the sights from the water, we got smacked with some steep waves leaving the harbor and had about 5 gallons of water pour in through open hatches (lessons.....lessons), were under motor most of the night down the NJ coast, a bit tedious, caught some nice winds early in the morning, and then got a royal pounding going up the Delaware bay with 3-5 foot seas, direct into the wind and current pushing us. We did get the currents right at each juncture which was a big benefit. After a quick respite at the Summit North Marina in the C&D canal we headed down the Chesapeake and are currently anchored in the Sassafras river. We will spend most of the next month poking around the Chesapeake before heading down the Inter Coastal Water Way (ICW).

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com