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Susan and I are home. Actually, we’re at a place far better than home. We’re at our cottage in Michigan. We left Reliant twelve days ago. She’s “on the hard”, which is fancy boat talk for “storage”, in the little town of Deltaville, VA.

We spent 39 days on the boat this summer. It’s true, I would liked to have been away longer – two weeks longer at least. I would also liked to have spent more time exploring all the nooks, crannies, bays and creeks for which Chesapeake Bay is so well known. In the end, the relentless 100+degree heat and the stupefying humidity of coastal Virginia were just too much for us. Cruising is supposed to be fun. Isn’t it?

We had a good trip. We covered a lot of miles, enjoyed a couple of great sails, visited interesting places, and met a bunch of wonderful people. (Well, there were one or two individuals who maybe weren’t quite so wonderful, but that’s always the case.) Susan and I will have good memories of this trip: The Erie Canal as it meanders across up-state New York is as pretty as we remember it from our first transit 37 years ago. Our Atlantic passage around the eastern shore of New Jersey was a spectacular over-night sail. Such sails are rare and never forgotten. Cape May, with its large beautifully preserved historic district, was a very pleasant surprise. And then there was Tangier Island, which is located just 80 miles as the Osprey flies from downtown Washington, DC. It is so isolated sitting out there in the middle of Chesapeake Bay that its residents speak to each other in an almost unintelligible archaic Elizabethan dialect and stubbornly pursue a way of life – crab fishing - that is virtually extinct almost everywhere else on the Chesapeake. Tangier Island, alone, would have made the time, effort, and expense of this summer’s cruise worthwhile. Finally, in all of these places we met people whose company we enjoyed and who we will remember fondly. Yes, it was a good trip.

So, that’s it for now. Susan and I will return to Reliant and continue our journey south sometime in the Fall, when it’s cooler. We’ll talk to you then.

Best wishes to all. Have a good summer, Leo & Sue