Sun Sept 20: Leonardtown dock to Cobb Island Capt John's Crab Shack and Marina

 In which we attend an author talk by Ken Follett ...

Rick speaking:

We had originally planned to go to Colton Point Marina to check out the facility but decided it was a bit shallow so we continued out into the Potomac River and traveled a short distance to Captain John's Crab Shack and Marina at Cobb's Island.  We needed to have reliable internet so we could connect to our author talk at 1:00 pm.  I had seen in an email from the Miami library (I still get their emails) that Ken Follett would be giving a talk on his new book - a prequel to Pillars of the Earth - and we signed up to attend. 

We arrived at the marina at about 12 noon and Melanie pulled of a perfectly executed docking maneuver despite a strong wind pushing the boat from the side.   We tied up with the help of two young men on the dock.   The "dock hands" actually worked in the kitchen in the restaurant and knew nothing about tying up a boat.  Nothing inspires less confidence that someone standing on the dock saying "I have no idea what I am doing!".   So I jumped off the boat in time to give the deck hands a, well, ..... hand and we were ship shape (sorry) in no time.

We had a quick lunch (leftover piazza!) and then connected to the marina wifi to find that it didn't work!  This is often the case.  A marina says "oh yes, we have wifi" and indeed they have a wifi network, its just that it isn't actually connected to the internet - or is so slow that it might as well not exist.  We were able to use our telephone hotspot so we did get connected and just time time for the Zoom talk.  It was interesting and fun.   The virus has certainly been a pain, but one thing it has done is push lots of events to the internet which makes them available to us when, if things were normal, we would not have been in Miami to participate. So perhaps a small bright spot. 

 

Once that was over we once again put on our walking shoes, gathered our gear and set out to see what we could find in Cobb Island. 

 

And what did we find? Seagull poop.   As we walked up the dock from our boat it looked like it was home to many birds who leave their droppings wherever they want.  It was a mess! Once off the dock we walked across the new bridge  to Cobb Island which appears to be a summer holiday get-a-way location.   It is a small island with beautifully maintained houses and gardens.   Our 5 mile walk took us around the entire island.

 

Gables are us.

Awwww - this is the shape of the island

  

 

Check out to two doggies on the porch asking to be let in!

 

In other places we have been the normal mode of transportation has been golf cart.  I guess here it is small tractor?

A little radio fun fact.

Back at the boat it was getting on towards dinner time and we discussed going up to the Crab Shack for dinner.  We decided that we had too much food on board that needed to be eaten and that also, we're tired of crab!  The big export from this area is Maryland Blue Crab and it is everywhere.  As are are the crab pots in the water that we spend much of our cruising time dodging so we don't catch the lines with our propeller/rudder.

Boat name of the day!