July 16, 2008.

Wye Island is desolate and beautiful.
Last night we took the dinghy down the river to take some pictures of a plantation that’s visible from the water. The dogs both really enjoy flying along at 15 knots in the dink, especially when it’s hot as hell, like it is here.

Today was even hotter and we decided to hang around and do some boat projects. Christy cleaned the BBQ grill and then we decided that since the water was dead calm and there was no breeze whatsoever, it was time to go to the masthead and replace our windex. The windex was destroyed when some type of condor tried to land on it about 18 months ago. I’m not really crazy about heights so I’ve been patiently waiting for the perfect anchorage to take replace the windex.

I got the new windex (which has been on board for 18 months since its purchase) assembled and got the lines rigged to haul me aloft. This involves me strapping into the bosun’ chair and Christy using the anchor windlass and the main sail halyard to haul me up. Christy tails the line and controls the speed of my ascent until I’m at the masthead.

Then she cleats off the line while I work, before hand belaying me back down. The installation of the new windex went smoothly and I was back on deck in five minutes.

A good portion of the island that we’ve been able to see is planted with various crops. All afternoon there was a crop duster spraying all the surrounding fields on the island. It was actually a pretty good private airshow as he barreled overhead at tree top level from field to field. We decided to take the dogs in for an afternoon walk. I’ve been taking them to a spot that runs the length of a barley field, but we weren’t real happy about taking them for a walk there since it had just been sprayed with some chemical, so we decided to try something new.

This area of the park including the gazebo, a pavilion and some other buildings can be rented out for private functions. There’s a small dock at the edge of this area with a sign that says “No pets in the pavilion area”. We decided to land the dogs there and turned towards the very long driveway that leads away from this complex. There’s 30 foot wide strip of grass on either side of the half mile long gravel driveway.

So technically we’d landed the dogs in an area that’s against the rules but then walked them straight away from the area. Of course, when our walk was just about over a Park Ranger on patrol spotted us and stopped to watch. To get back to the dinghy we had to walk into the restricted area, get past him and get into the dink. As soon as we start through the area he hopped out of the truck and walked over to intercept us on the way to the dock. I’ve already got my “we used the driveway, poor puppy bladders, chemicals from the sky” speech ready to go. I was expecting the worst but the guy couldn’t have been nicer. He said “hey” to us, played with the dogs and just explained about this being a rental area which includes the dock we tied up to. It wasn’t a problem today since nobody was using the place. He just wanted us to realize that it could be a problem the next time we come back to Wye Island, since everybody comes back to Wye. I don’t blame them either, it’s a nice place.