July 8, 2008.

First off, I’d like to thank Windows Word for being so smart. All I have to do is type the month at the top of the page and it automatically fills in the rest of the date. I may not know what day of the week it is or the number that goes with it but I’m still pretty sure about the months.

We spent the 3 day weekend in Solomon’s Island, Md. We watched the fireworks, walked hither and yon taking care of our chores and finally met a dog hater.

Not like the guy from Vero Beach 2 years ago. He was just a Jersey hater and it manifested itself directed at the dogs. I could understand his psychosis, after all, its Jersey. But our dog hater from yesterday caught us completely off guard.

We were in the dink on the way in to go food shopping. The guy on the next boat was sitting in his cockpit, we waved, he waved back and then waved us over. Let me preface this meeting with a little background information. They were anchored here when we first arrived. It’s been several days and they still haven’t launched their dinghy and gone ashore. Not once. This was the first time I’ve seen either one of them on deck in the daylight. They stay below all day, we might catch a glimpse at twilight and that’s it. I’ve got a theory that they might be vampires who silently launch their dink after dark and have it back on deck before daylight. Christy thinks my theory is stupid but I think she’s just jealous that “I” have a theory.

Anyway, this tiny little bitch, er, I mean this guy starts to whine that the dogs bark non-stop every time we leave the boat. For the first time in as long as I can remember I was speechless. Molly’s practically a mime, you should see her do “dog in an invisible box”, she never barks. We know that Tucker will sometimes howl when we first leave the boat. For Christ’s sake, the dog only weighs 14 pounds, how loud can he be. We’ve had friends tell us about his howling and we’ve heard it ourselves upon occasion but I just didn’t think it was that big a deal. Everyone said that he stopped after a few minutes and that they thought it was adorable. We’ve even had friends drive by the boat and encourage him to “sing”. I’ve heard louder noise from wind in the rigging.

We were both dumbfounded; I was sitting there like my parents were brother and sister. He was making all these contorted, disgusted faces while he was complaining. Finally I said “what would you have us do?” He said “you could put them below” Christy said “no, it’s too hot” then I added “don’t worry, we’ll be back” and we continue on our way. Who knew vampires were so sonic sensitive?

On our way back to the boat with our groceries we spied our closest shore bound neighbor cleaning his fishing skiff at his backyard dock. We pulled up in the dinghy and asked if he’d heard our dog and was he really that obnoxious. He replied that he’d heard Tucker ‘singing” and thought it was kinda cute. He said it only lasts a few minutes. Then he said once in a while his dog and Tucker will bark back and forth across the water but “that’s what dogs do, they’re just talkin” Christy recounted our previous encounter with the vampire and the guy said “if he don’t like the noise let him go anchor someplace else”

Then it struck me how the Solomon's got its name, the locals just ooze wisdom.

The next morning we bade Bella Lugosi and Solomon’s Island farewell and headed north for Herrington Harbor to see friends. We knew we would be bucking the ebbing tide so we waited until 1000 before pulling the hook in an effort to catch some of the late flood tide.

We had just enough breeze to keep the sails full and we motorsailed the entire 30 miles. Herrington Harbor is a big marina inside a fantastic seawall. The only problem is that there’s only a channel and a couple of marina’s inside the jetty, so we have to anchor outside the jetty and dinghy in to see our people.

The anchorage is fairly rolly but as long as the wind stays out of the west it’ll be doable. We went in and had a great reunion with Jim & Nancy from Solitaire and Phil who we haven’t seen since this time last year. This was the birthplace of Captain Rumboy and there was potential for a Rumboy spotting but through the use of maturity and self discipline I was able to keep the Captain at bay. That and the fact that Christy said no.


Boat Name of the Day. It was a sailboat we saw named Saline Solution and his dinghy was called Dropper.