April, 06

April 23rd, 2006 Well we co-hosted a murder mystery dinner last night on the dock, along with neighbors, Jay and Nicky. Guess who was the only one to correctly identify the murderer? Me.... :-) We had 11 players for the evening. We took turns serving different portions of the meal. Nancy prepared the main course of Pork tenderloin Mojito with hot mango chutney, Cuban black bean salad and avocado stuffed with crab. Nicky prepared several wonderful tropical-themed hors d'oeuvres. Mike prepared a spicy shrimp soup and a Pina-Colada cake that was so full of liquor, you needed to show ID to have a slice. Mary Jane contributed an apple crisp. The mystery took place on a cruise to the Bahamas on the boat of a famous Canadian rock star - guests included a pink-haired talk show host, a famous tennis player, a basketball star, an Elvis-like ghost, Hercules, and his warrior-princess bride. Here are some of the players.

As far as boat work, I have replaced the halyards and reefing lines with Sta-Set X line. I had the Annapolis West Marine rigging shop make up the halyards and furling line. Great work. The main eye splice and the Flemish eye splice were whipped and bound after completion. I'd love to see the machine that does that sewing. Sure looks better than one of my bowlines. The Flemish eye is used to attach the line to bring the halyards through the pulleys and down inside the mast. Works great. The main traveler line was also replaced with West Marine doing the eye splice and whipping. The fuel tanks were cleaned and all water was removed. We got about 3 quarts of water and dirt out of the main tank and just a few drops from the auxiliary tank. After that was done, all engine fuel filters were replaced along with the Racor filters. Nice to have all that done.

Next weekend we will be in Tucson, AZ. for my dad's 80th birthday party. Its a good year for them, Mom is 85, Dad 80, and the Anniversary is the 55th. Everything divisible by 5. A boat neighbor is baby sitting the cats and we will sit for their cat when they leave for a long weekend. Works out fine.

April 17th, 2006 Several things happening, Nancy has left me again. Down to sunny Florida. She will be back at the end of the week.

Mike and Kirsty got married so another couple and us took them to dinner that evening for a little celebration and then recognized the event on board last night.

We had a birthday party on the dock. Marti was having HER first party since she was married. She had plenty for HIM but none for her. So we "did her proud" as they say in other parts of the country. Her husband actually had done an exceptional job planning and organizing. She was happy with him.

We had a total of eight for Easter dinner. Nancy made up a huge dinner that had ham, some special new potato, asparagus, whole fresh green beans, fresh baked rolls and another live aboard bunny brought a huge salad and dessert (a cake made from fresh strawberries and strawberry juice, wonderful). Oh, the bunny picture.

The activity of the bay is starting to pick up as spring has sprung. Boats are back in the water and more people are showing up. We have another live aboard for the summer. Jeff and Tessa have a sailboat two slips away. The boat is a Krogen. I thought they only built trawlers but back in the eighties they put together about 80 of these boats. Very nice lines and a personality boat.

The bay is very pretty this time of year and it is good to see the activity. Although Sunday night was great as all the weekenders left and the eight of us were on our boat having a party. It was nice to get the dock back and enjoy the evening with friends. Two of our live aboard neighbors have their boats on the hard for about a week so general maintenance can be done on them, new bottom paint, wax, fix through hulls. Little things like that. They are doing all the work themselves and are being reminded that they are not as young as they thought.

April 2nd, 2006, Well a few new things. This week we saw our second boat fire. The owner had just purchased the boat the day before and had just completed fueling it when it was engulfed with flames. One small child received burns to his feet, hands and hair (sounded like flash burns). It was interesting in that when it exploded (hate that term, it was a fast moving flame, couple of seconds) everyone ran away because it was at a fuel dock. Two tattooed guys ran into the flames and rescued the child and then moved other boats out of the way. One of them had received the Red Cross first aid training and he said that he just did what he was trained to do. It really restores your faith in people when you see someone put their fears aside and just do what is right. The gal that held the rescued child was still shaking after the experience.

Yesterday we did tourist things. We went to two Forts that protected Washington D. C. from invasion on the Potomac River during different periods of the City's history. Fort Foote (named after a General) is one of the only remaining Civil War Forts. It was rather small and in very poor repair compared to Fort Washington, the other one that we visited. Although two cannons were still intact. They were two of the 30 some cannons that could launch a 400+ pound shell, 3.5 miles down the river. These were the biggest cannons of their time and could puncture a 10 inch armored ship at 1000 yards. They were aimed down river at a 3000 to 4000 yard range. There are only a few of these cannons left as most were either buried or were used to reinforce the walls of Fort Washington when it was built in the early 1800s.

Fort Washington was huge. It was spread over 300 acres on a point overlooking the Potomac river, a little upstream and in view of Mt. Vernon. The actual fort was built like an old medieval castle, with draw bridge and moat. In this picture, Nancy is standing where the drawbridge was at the entrance to the Fort.

Although the Fort is in major disrepair, many of the original buildings are still standing and it looks like there is some minor restoration going on. The site offers a wonderful view of the Potomac River and was the first place to have a lighthouse to guide ships into Washington D.C. The property is owned and managed by the Dept. of Interior, but we saw that the Army had taken back the lighthouse point and put in two radars that scan the river traffic. Because of that there were signs that said we would be arrested if we took close-up pictures of the lighthouse. We noticed that we were being watched by a very small video camera mounted inside the fenced area. So, much to Nancy's chagrin, we waited until we were a suitable distance from the point before we took this picture of the lighthouse, along with the Army radar equipment.