Day 4, October 17, 2008: Solomons, MD to Reedville, VA

Day 4, October 17, 2008: Solomons, MD to Reedville, VA

This morning, we met Fred and Ethyl. There are two geese that guard the entrance to the docks in Solomns. They are a bit ornery, and Joan has dubbed them Fred and Ethyl. They take their responsibility as dock guards very seriously, and judging from Fred's crooked wing, he's not afraid of getting up close and personal. Last night, it was a bit tricky getting around them on the docks to get to and from Razz. This morning, we encountered them again, and this time I had my camera ready. I took a video of Jack and Fred facing off - I'll post it here as soon as I get home.

There is a naval air base next to Solomons, so we got to see fighter jets and helicopters doing maneuvers the whole time we were there. I took one picture of a jet taking off over our heads - the sound of the jets streaking overhead was awesome.

Solomons to Reedville was all downwind, so we popped up the spinnaker sail.  I got to work 'the sock'. You attach the spinnaker sheets in the back corners of the boat, attach the tack around the forestay where the jib is, and then you attach the top corner (the 'head') to a separate spinnaker halyard. Jack raised the spinnaker halyard, but the spinnaker is initially all bagged up inside a long sock that runs the entire height of the sail. My job was to haul a line that retracts the sock from bottom to top, releasing the spinnaker as it rises. This is an amazing sight - the spinnaker is huge, and it expands from bottom to top as the sock is lifted off of it.

We sailed with the spinnaker most of the day, and even got into a little race with 3 other boats going the same direction. We beat two of them handily, but got left behind by 'Jubilee'. As we pulled in towards Reedville, we pulled down the spinnaker sail and switched to motor. This was just in time, because it started to rain hard. Razzmatazz has an enclosure which can be tacked up around the cockpit to completely protect that area from wind and water, so we stayed dry.

What I think all of us will remember most about Reedville is the smell, or to put it more accurately, the stench. The second I stepped out of the enclosure, I was hit by the reek of dead crabs, which is kind of like turds mixed with mud and then fermented. Because it was raining heavily, we put on our foul weather gear to dock the boat. We got to Reedville and pulled up at the dock, which is also a restaurant. After getting the waitress to take our picture in our foul weather gear, we went into the restaurant, the Crazy Crab, where the smell was much less noticeable. I had a crab bisque bread bowl that was really satisfying, and a weird combination of crab meat with melted cheddar cheese on an english muffin. It turned out to be much better than it sounds!