Position           38:50.53N 76:32.18W

Date                2359 – Tuesday 31 May 2011 (UTC -4)

A day alongside may have been tempered by temperatures again in the 100’s F but there were compensations.  Elizabeth and Celia met the manager of another marina who offered to open his swimming pool, normally closed on Tuesdays, for them.

The skipper meanwhile disappeared into the engine room, my own personal sauna and steam room combined, to carry out various bits of necessary maintenance.

1700 came round and members of the Ocean Cruising Club gathered in the marina restaurant bar.  Sid and Rebecca Shaw, the OCC Rear Commodores for Mid East Coast North America and the Rally organisers were there to greet us.  Mawari, OCC members Bob and Sue Dall a UK Najad that we met in Bermuda and who we had recruited for the Rally appeared with son Cameron just in time having been delayed in Hampton Roads with boat issues and with Andrew and Celia on Alice that made three British Boats out of a fleet of 10.

A very jolly evening followed and we look forward to the next three days.

I missed out on photographs for the trip up the Bay so here are just a few to lighten the text.

Most of the old Bay light houses have been removed and replaced by unmanned towers.  This very pretty one remains.

Many channels are marked by posts with red or green top marks.  Every top mark appears to have a nest with a pair of these (Jane – help with identity please?).  There are two birds in the picture you can just see the top of one sitting in the nest.  We can only assume that the number of breeding pairs is limited by the number of navigation marks.

Solomons Island, Mill Creek at dusk (note there is no apostrophe in Solomons it is not my typo).  Just to give an impression of the space; this is looking towards the main Bay.  Most of the water in the picture is about 3 feet deep so careful pilotage is required to find the channel.

We are not sure what this is replica of and there were two of them motoring together.  The other one was too far away for a photograph and appeared to have lateen sails on the main and mizzen.