Rock Hall - Last day

Ann with the engineer

I'm an avid member of Active Captain and they maintain a list of recommended products for boat use. Today I decided to give one of their recommendations a try, the use of Oxiclean for top deck cleaning. Guess what, it works wonders. The bleaching effect in the formula is enough to get rid of minor stains (like from birds) and also dissolve and lift off all the dirt, fantastic - it's cheap too (isn't this blog educational?)


While haivng fun cleaning the boat, we heard a loud racket behind us which turned out to be a strange looking boat. It was a dive boat that supports three divers at once. They clean the bottoms of large boats as an alternative to dry docking. The engineer invited us aboard for a tour and showed us what's required to ensure that three divers never run out of air for hard hat diving (scuba diving is unsafe working on props and under a very large ship for long periods). First on the list was three separate generators to run the air compressors for the air lines. It was his responsibility to keep them running, no matter what! What a racket with all three running at the same time! Additonally, there were two more engines to keep in shape that drove the ship.

One of three generators - large!!

He spoke of coming down the Delaware River from Wilmington. The river was full of large logs, whole trees and often with no way to go around them so they just plowed through the debris. They had to reduce their speed from a normal 7 kts to 3 and often had debris jammed between their props and the rudder. Finally they entered Chesapeake City for the night and today they made it to Rock Hall. He came over to visit and helped adjust the idle speed on our Volvo which was too low and stalled once upon switching to idle right in the harbor!

Ann with Jim, our host and boater friend at the marina on his boat

Tonight, Jim (the boater we met at the marina) invited us over for dinner. He used the grilling facilities provided by the marina to prepare two pork tenderloins and we retired to his boat for wine and a great dinner with a wide ranging conversation - somehow always better with wine on the water. We tried talking him into going down the ICW this year instead of next but without success (but he thought about it!)

The end to a perfect day

We're ready to move Thursday to Rhode River, weather permiting. .