Off again

Rhode River, Maryland   38 53.000N 076 31.761W

September 24th, 2009

We have spent five to six weeks off Lady.  We had her pulled out of the water at Zahniser's Yachting Center in Solomon Island, Maryland, in early August, where the yard did more maintenance, cleaned and painted her bottom and waxed the hull.

We rented a car and drove to Tulsa, where we spent a lovely month - the coolest August we can ever remember in Oklahoma.  Spent time with friends and

of course, lots of time with little miss Anna Louise McNamara and her parents.  We were able to see most of the other McNamaras while we were home

We were able to participate in her Ponca City baptism.

We also were able to go to the Paul McCartney concert at the BOK Center, a fabulous new venue for such a great performance.

Charlie played a lot of golf. Once again, just before his breakthrough round, we had to leave (says Charlie)!

I went to England and visited my mother, had reunion of nine old girls from Portsmouth High School, spent time with my sister Maggie, and her husband Jeremy,

who were also visiting UK from New Zealand, and had a wonderful night at my cousin Janet's, where another cousin, Keith was also visiting.

Charlie left Tulsa while I was in the UK and drove back to Maryland via Indiana, where he visited farming friends and got to Lady in time to supervise her launch.

He met me off the plane in Washington DC, and we worked on finishing off re-commissioning projects, provisioning, installing two additional solar panels, extra insulation for fridge - it seemed like we were working on boat projects all day every day.

We took the weekend off and attended and Ocean Sailing seminar offered by the Carib 1500 organizers in Hampton, Virginia, picking up Lady's liferaft and inflatable lifejackets that had been left at Vane Brothers for servicing.

At last, yesterday we were able to return the rental car and get away from the dock.  It was flat calm as we left the Patuxent River, and we motored for about five hours to get here to the Rhode River.

There are presently about fifty cruising yachts, a few power, but mostly sailing boats, at anchor here to attend the Seven Seas Cruising Association's fall gam.  A weekend of seminars of interest to cruisers, and parties too.