Finally, back to cruising more than a few miles in a day, but of course still some “excitement”. The new bilge pumps were supposed to arrive by noon, so I took the opportunity to change the oil. I have been targeting 200 engine hours for changes and we were at 195, so a good time to get it done. I had the port engine just about done when the marina technician came with the new pumps. It didn’t take him long to have them ready and then he investigated the source of the water. As it turns out it was the port shaft, not the new one. This has had a slight leak from before we started the trip and I’m not sure if it really had gotten worse or not. But if the bilge pumps don’t work, a little leak can become a big problem. After a little struggle getting the large nuts loose, he was able to adjust and tighten the packing around the shaft and stop the leak.
I finished up the starboard engine oil change and we were ready to go. Even though it was after 2 pm, we thought we’d try to get a few more miles down the river, so off we went. Before we had even reached the main channel the port engine alarm went off. A quick check of the gauges showed that everything was as it should be, but the alarm continued. After shutting it down and checking for anything obvious down below, we decided to go back to the marina. As you might guess, when we got there and called the technician back, we couldn’t get the alarm to go off again. We concluded that as long as the gauges were indicating proper temperature and oil pressure, we should be ok.
Off we went again and this time everything seemed back to normal. I consulted Geo while cruising and he reminded me of the time we had a starboard engine alarm go off without an assignable cause. In that case Geo had tightened the wire connections to the alarm and it stopped. We cruised a couple of hours without any more boat issues. The weather, however looked like it was quickly changing and it appeared another thunderstorm was nearby. We checked the Waterway Guide for anchorages or other options and found a nearby marina that offered a free dock with dinner. We’re all about free docks and dinner and we hadn’t had a good shore meal since coming back, so we headed to Captain Johns at Cobb Island, Maryland. Cobb Island is a small island with a fixed bridge connecting it to the mainland and the marina and restaurant were on the mainland side, but above the fixed bridge. I couldn’t find anything in the charts or the GPS that told the air draft clearance of the bridge. A quick call to the marina and I was told 18 feet – at low tide. A check of the tide table and we were an hour after high tide. There is a normal tide swing of about 2.5 feet here, but there are other factors to consider and we were there and the storm looked very close. Unlike Florida and most ICW bridges, there was not a water level marker on the bridge indicating current height clearance. Denise took the helm and I stood on the back of the upper helm looking over the bimini and trying to sight the clearance. It was going to be close. Even though we were going as slow as we could, we should have come to a complete stop. We barely slid under the first beam and before I could do anything else we smacked the anchor light on the top of the mast on the middle bridge beam. The anchor light had no chance, but I’m just glad we didn’t hit the actual mast, it would have been much worse. By the time we docked the skies were clearing and the storm didn’t materialize.
The Potomac River has not been good to us.
If you ever find yourself in southern Maryland, make it a point to stop at Captain John’s. This is not a tourist destination. It was locals and families having a good time on a Friday night. Platters of steamed crabs were abundant and kids and adults alike were hammering away at the famed Maryland blue crabs. Denise started a conversation with the couple next to us and the lady gave a demonstration of how to open a hard shell crab and then gave us samples. It was better than lobster, which I like a lot. In the end though, we took the easy way out and got crab cakes because we didn’t want all of the work that came with the hard shells. It looks like fun and we will do it before we are out of the bay, but our conclusion was that you really needed to plan a few hours for this event. The all crab, no filler, crab cakes were delicious.
These free docks are a great thing, for the normal price of a marina dock, we got a great dinner too.
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