We left beautiful St. Mary’s River this morning. It was overcast and breezy with 15 knot winds as we entered the Potomac on our way up the river to DC. We had planned a stop in Colonial Beach, VA since it is a 2 day trip to DC from here (in our go slow boat!).
The cruising guides notified us that we would be traveling through a restricted zone. (Vicki and Norm, we LOVE the cruising guide!) That is because we would be going right through Dahlgren Naval Surface Weapons test range! We were told to radio ahead to see if it was a ‘cold’ or ‘hot’ day. On hot days there are live test firings on the range. The range patrol advised us that it was ‘hot’ today and that we had to stay south of the range. It was really something to hear the booming in the distance of the testing. The restricted zone we had entered before we got to this zone was for strafing and bombing. We were glad it was ‘cold’!!
We weren't sure what this tug was towing but it looked like pieces of a bridge. Very strange to see going down the waterway.
Rick is carefully watching where this tanker is going since they always have the right of way, whether they are right or not! We are so small in comparison.
It was a nice but uneventful 5 hour trip to Colonial Beach. We had hoped to anchor out but the water was too shallow so we ended up in a marina. Just as we were docking, a huge rainstorm broke out, so all our books and charts were getting soaked, at the same time we heard a new alarm in the boat going off that we hadn’t heard before, we couldn’t get power to the boat and we started dripping diesel fuel from the aft tank vent. Just another day on the water. We hitched a ride into town with the marina staff to a great Chinese restaurant and walked 2+ miles back to the marina. On the way passed a small ice cream kiosk and just had to sample their old fashioned A&W Root Beer Float! We leave in the morning for the 65 mile (8+ hours) to DC.
