Solomons still…

We’ve had four nice days in a row!! A record for this trip.  We are staying here until Friday because as far as marinas go, it doesn’t get much better.  There are surprising gardens everywhere and lots of shade trees.   Little decks and docks to just set a spell.  Three huge covered picnic areas with grills and tables supplied.  The nicest, cleanest bathrooms.  Free shuttle service….. Did I mention the pool with attached bar 😎  “I could so live here”!!!   We have already forgot the days of rain and killer heat—almost.

Another amazing thing here are the back creeks.  You look across a waterway and see an interesting sight but when you look at a map, “you can’t get there from here.”  You have to drive up and around the creek you are on and then down the next one.   It would be a 5 minute boat ride.  The amount of waterways is really something– never knew!!!

Today we did the River walk, which ends at the “world famous” Tiki Bar.  It wasn’t open 😢   Didn’t really look like much.  Someone’s idea of a tropical bar but the palm trees were all dead.  We have since found out it is closed for good….wanna buy a bar???

We haven’t said too much about the food in the area.  It has been marvelous.  Lots of crab.  The crab soups are sooo good.  However, after awhile all the menus start to look the same.  Crab cake is different in each place–some exceptional–some not so much.  We’ve probably had it five times or so.  Always spendy.   Lots of other fish and seafood.  Joe had oysters.  I’ve had a lot of shrimp.

I tried two dishes I have never had before.  Soft shell crab is a crab that has recently molted their old exoskeloten and are still soft.  It occurs this time of the year.  Sounds yummy eh?  But, when in Rome….  So, they are breaded and served in a sandwich.  The menu said it had a “tempura” batter and the waitress said it was good.   Didn’t live up to the hype for me.  I could mainly just taste the breading.

The 2nd thing I tried was rock fish.  I had seen it on menus, talked to a guy that was fishing for it and saw one on a charter boat that came in.   Again, I didn’t care for it.   Too dry.  Perhaps I was unlucky enough to have had two bad examples of the local fare.  However, tonight we went to the restaurant in town everyone said not too miss.  We had great cocktails.  I had a French Martini made with Chamboard, Vanilla Vodka and a splash of pineapple juice.  So, the fish dish was rock fish.  What the heck, I’ll give it another shot…  Glad I did, it was great.  I am also glad we took the shuttle from the marina 😁

It has been entertaining being across the river from the Patuxent River Naval Air Station.  No Navy ships here.  It’s all naval aircraft.  First you hear something and next you search the sky.  So far we have seen F/A-18 Hornet Strike Fighters and a F35B Lightening that was fully armed.  We saw a plane with a huge radar dome on top of it.  Various helicopters–some also fully armed.  The slip holders in the marina mostly ignore them but we can’t help but look up and search the sky.  Pretty cool.

I did find that this air base is home to Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), the US Naval Test Pilot School and the Atlantic test range.  It was commissioned in 1943 and grew rapidly in response to WWII.  There is a museum there that was raved about but we are out of time.

A sailor next to us (surprisingly admitted to being a non Trump supporter) has been sailing in the area for 30 years.  He belongs to Sailing Singles, doing cruising, racing and crewing.  He had some good stories and advice, but we will remember him by his statement when we pointed out the odd sky in the East.  We thought it looked like a sunset….Its in East!!!

He hadn’t seen that before, but he asked if we knew about the green flash.  Joe (of course) said he knew what caused a green flash.  This guy claims to have seen it twice!!!  Neither of us have ever seen it nor do we think we know anyone who claims to.  So, please let us know if you are in the special green flash league.

One thing about this area that I will not miss is the 140 feet high single lane bridge that soars over the river.  You drive in your narrow lane, that has no shoulder, with approaching traffic so very close .   It feels like a roller coaster…up… Up…up– you go and you can’t see over the top!!  The sides of the bridge seem like they are only concrete barriers a few feet tall.  This bridge is scary to drive over!!!!  Especially in the wind.

Well, our time in the Cheasepeake is coming to an end soon so we unfortunately need to change our itinerary.  We had planned on two more stops before Deltaville, Virginia, our final destination.   The weather really screwed us up. Especially at the beginning of the trip when we were suppose to get a windlass installed.  We have found the boat needs a few other tweaks and we want to get it done before we go home.   The refrigerator is severely lacking in insulation.  This was pretty obvious on those sweltering days.  We need to chase down the window leak.  We had a cover made for the boat but still need to build the frame to support it up and over the top.  We need lots of measuring for window coverings and more things we want installed.  Therefore, we are heading to Deltaville on Friday.   We will stay in a marina for a week and then pull the boat for her Summer’s nap.

Solomons Island has been sweet!!!