Weekend fun!

Well, the weekend started Thursday for John and me with a trip to his boat in the morning. Jeff and Sophia each took a night with Mom (thanks again guys!).

After an hour or so of prep work on the boat (for John; well, someone had to drink the beer...), we headed out for a day of sailing across the Chesapeake to Dunn's Cove. Stopped on the way for a nice swim behind the boat. I was in the water about 30 minutes. John, however, was paddling about an hour or so as neither of us noticed that the sail ropes were trailing in the water when we started the engine up to catch the wind. Whoops. Got a bunch of ropes wrapped around the propeller thingee (I'm still learning the technical terms). Anyway, 30 minutes of diving under the boat for John resulted in a proper untangling. Me? I was drinking beer. Now, I did have a job - it was making sure he came up each time he dove under!

We got to the cove which, quite sadly, we had to share with about 8 other sailboats, but it was still gorgeous. We sat on the bow of the boat with coffee (for future reference, if you've ever got coffee beans and find yourself in the situation of not having a grinder, a fire extinguisher works well as a crusher...). Sat and watched the sun go down for an hour or so. Great sights - wonderful time.

Friday saw us cutting across Naps Narrows to get back quicker to the marina as we had an agenda (Victoria's house for crabs!). Cut off about 2.5 hours of sailing by cutting through the narrows, but, man, it was NARROW! Fun to watch the draw bridge open for us though as I'm usually the one in the car, tapping inpatiently as I watch a gorgeous boat pass underneath.

Once we made it through, I took the wheel and sailed the boat most of the way across the bay - great fun although sailing is work!

We docked, got the boat basically cleaned up and headed down in the convertible to Victoria's house. Now, THIS is living! She lives on a creek off the Patuxent down in Lusby, Maryland. John and I arrived pretty grungy from being on the boat. A shower followed by a power nap left us in fine spirits and ready for the Mai Tai cocktails awaiting our arrival at the Tiki Bar on Solomon's Island. Victoria was tied up in a business meeting (for those of you office types: don't hold meetings on Friday afternoons - really bad idea). Anyway, Vic met up with us there for just 'one more cocktail'.

An hour later, we were on her paddle boat heading to the little sandy beach with 'one more cocktail' for a few hours. Her paddle boat has a small electric engine and is just ideal for tooling around the creek, exploring small coves, etc. Lots of fun was had by all. Vic deemed John the 'barnacle' as he was riding beside us on a big tube and thereby slowing our progress. He took it in good stride. (Much like waking up the next morning with his toenails paints - Note to all: Never, evah (!) fall asleep before Vic and me....).

Dinner was 7 gorgeous crabs caught in her crab pots and 2 rather large steaks caught somewhere off a cow...yum. As is our normal practice, we saved the claws for Mom (she's a bit spoiled when it comes to picking crabs). She just had them tonight as part of her dinner. The woman can really pick a claw clean...

Sunday, John and I got up early and headed off in the paddle boat with coffee to just hang out. Saw a lot of Great Blue Herons. These birds, btw, don't appear to have much of a sense of humor as, every time we approached for a picture, they'd bitch up a storm before taking flight.

Came home yesterday to the cool pool and warm hot tub. John made a perfect summer dinner - cucumber sandwiches (which mom totally devoured) and gazpacho. Too good. It was great to be me for the last 3 days! Although, truth is, it's always good to be me!