The Mess Became Worse Before It Improved -- But We Are Getting There

Both Peter and I have been extremely hard-working, although Peter's work requires more advanced knowledge and skill as well as physical labor than mine. While I already miss going to our club back home for exercise and yoga classes, I am getting my lifting and stretching through cleaning and organzing.

The mast is in place, and Steve finished working on the rigging last Friday, so now Mantra looks like she is ready to go. Of course, she is not, but we get closer every day with a deadline, as the surveyor will be here in two more days.

My work was put on hold last Friday, as the technician arrived to install (or help Peter install) the new lithium (LiFePo) house batteries and Starlink. Having a certified technician do the work is an insurance requirement; Peter is capable and would have preferred doing it himself. As it turned out, the technician, under Peter's tutelage, worked until 5 p.m. After he left, Peter continued to work, connecting cables, syncing up the correct programs for the batteries, and charging them. The technician was particularly unfamiliar with the lithium batteries we bought; fortunately, Peter understands advanced electronics and corrected the program choice on the system made by the technician, which could have resulted in a boat fire!

After the technician arrived, I had no space to move around or work, so I took the car and left. My first stop was the little Oxford Museum, which currently has an amazing exhibit of 30 antique and traditional quilts made locally, some dating back to the 1700s. Most of them are items from the collections of two women in the nearby town of Denton, who have been acquiring them for decades. I had a wonderful time studying the quilts with their variety of fabrics, patterns and quilting as well as chatting with the volunteer docent. We had fun trying to identify some of the objects, including the six inch square piece below, which is a beginner's loom from the 1930s.

Small loom and various small quilts

Then, I drove to Easton to do some sight-seeing and also to get provisions. I enjoyed walking around on a self-guided tour of the historic part of the city; the area was first settled by Europeans in the 1660's, although Easton did not officially become incorporated until 1788. The streets are shaded almost everywhere by large trees, and the houses all sit back from the sidewalk, providing privacy and small front yards. Shown below are some of the lovely structures I admired.

Stevens/Hambleton House (c. 1790)

Lobby area of the Tidewater Inn

Colonial Revival Victorian era house (c. 1874)

Bishops House (c. 1881)

James Neall House (c. 1804-10)

Federal Period Garden

Bearded iris in the Federal Period Garden

Chaffinch House (c. 1893)

Small Victorian era house

Trippe House (c. 1851)

I also stopped in the former National Guard Armory (c. 1927), which now is the Waterfowl Building, where there is a one-room museum with mounted ducks, gear and an old double-ended row boat with a lantern in a home made mount on one end and a five-barrel shot gun on the other, used for dessimating a flock of ducks in stands of reeds.

Waterfowl Building and "Family Affair" sculpture

Mounted local ducks

Double-ended rowboat for duck hunting

When my exploration of the city was finished (and it included the county jail where Frederick Douglass was imprisoned while still in slavery), I went to Walmart to get more provisions. Not long after I went inside, a severe thunderstorm began to rage, literally trapping everyone in the store. Luckily for me, I was piling my cart to the brim, so I was occupied in the aisles while the storm lasted for almost an hour. However, the rain pelting the roof was nearly cacophonous, so it was a noisy experience.

The parking lot and roads were littered with leaves ripped from their nodes as well as whole branches. As I drove away from Easton and approached Oxford, the road became clear, indicating that the storm was not as severe there, which Peter confirmed when I arrived. With four 12-packs of canned food and about a dozen grocery bags to unpack, I was overwhelmed with the prospect of stowing it all and making labels for the location of the all the dried provisions because the lockers are quite deep. I put away all the food needing refrigeration, and then, surveying the galley counters covered in groceries and the mess which had not improved in the saloon and the stacks of stuff in the forward cabin (I had been delusional to think that it would be ready for occupation by last Friday!), I became overcome with fatigue and simply had to go to shut down and go to bed around 10 p.m., after making dinner for Peter and me. He stayed up and continued to work until midnight, having started at 6 a.m.

With ten hours sleep, I felt refreshed and ready to get to work on Saturday morning. (I simply cannot understand how Peter manages long days of solid work and minimal sleep.) The groceries were the first job. After that, I continued to inventory the first aid kits, medications, severe medical emergency supplies, and the ditch bag (the waterproof container with emergency supplies if the boat has to be abandoned at sea). Many items were well past their expiration date while some had rusted or disintegrated. I made a list of items to be replaced so that we could purchase them. I had already found sunglasses with metal frames that were corroded and other items that were no longer usable, discarded them and bought replacements at Walmart. I also noted things we needed to pick up at West Marine later in the day. 

First aid supplies

Two boxes of supplies for more severe medical needs

I had persuaded Peter that both of us should take a break together on Saturday afternoon and enjoy some of the local attractions while in Easton to shop. Our first stop was the Amish Country Market, which is open only three days a week and run by Amish folk from central Pennsylvania. Housed in a space similar in size to a supermarket, the market has over twenty vendors and a large food court. Once a month, there are pig roast weekends in the parking lot. Peter enjoyed a pork sandwich meal while I had macaroni and cheese from the food court (good, but not as good as mine). After purchasing some cheese and produce, we couldn't pass up the funnel cake (Drechderkuche) being freshly prepared at the time of ordering. 

Amish women and others buying lunch

Amish women and one man working at the Amish Country Market

Young Amish woman making funnel cake for us

The next stop, after dropping off goods from the galley for donation to Goodwill, was West Marine, where we spent a few hundred dollars on more boat gear and an inflatable stand-up paddle board. We need to take our old orange kayak, bought in Cartagena in 2019, out on the water, but it appears that it may no longer be a sea-worthy craft after nearly six years of exposure to sun and salt water. 

We then drove along the country roads to our next destination, the Pickering Creek Audubon Center, located on land donated from a local farming family. As we opened the car doors, we were greeted by the melodic sounds of birds all around us. Walking on trails through meadows and new-growth forest and beside ponds, we almost constantly heard birdsong. The Merlin bird app identified over three dozen distinct species (of the 254 known to spend time there). Some vocalizations were new to us and some we were able to recognize on our own. The lush foliage made it extremely difficult to actually see the birds, but we did spot several, including the talkative northern mockingbird; the bright-red northern cardinal with its jaunty crest; the stunning blue, breeding male indigo bunting; turkey vultures gliding overhead; nesting tree swallows with sleek, cotton-white underparts, iridescent blue feathers above and black feathers on the lower wing and tail feathers, with the blue and white neatly separated along a line from the short gray bill, under the eye to the wings, giving the little bird a hooded look; mallard ducks, the males sporting shimmering emerald feathers on their heads and necks and distinctive, dapper patterns on their wings and bodies. 

Beautiful mural on an old barn at Pickering Creek Audubon Center

Fresh water pond

Tree swallow in a nesting box

Indigo bunting

Creek in the woods

Peter taking a much-deserved nap

Fowler's toad

Small meadows in the woods

There were several warning signs for ticks, but we did not notice any on our legs or arms or other exposed areas when we left. We decided to drive on different back roads and take the short ride across the Tred Avon River to Oxford. The eastern peninsula is fairly remote despite its proximity to major urban areas on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay, and we often did not have cell phone service. So, when we suddenly encountered three large deciduous trees lying directly across the road in front of us, we had to turn around and take a detour with Peter "following his nose," after receiving some advice from a local woman who came along in her van just as we were reversing out. It is difficult to rely on landmarks for navigation because, the area, while bucolic in the spring, has a certain sameness to it: flat land with mixed woods, open fields--recently planted with corn or grain--and houses and barns. We waited for a brief time for the ferry (which has been operating since 1683 with different craft) to cross over from Oxford, and the cars, bikes and pedestrians were quickly loaded for the short transit. We unloaded our purchases from West Marine and took the car to other end of this small town to the public park where there are free charging hook-ups. The late afternoon was warm and pleasant, and we admired houses and gardens as we walked along the main street and sat on the waterfront enjoying ice cream (instead of dinner!) from Scottish Highland Creamery.

The ferry approaching the Bellevue dock

Peter and Sherri on the ferry

A beautiful house and front yard in the late afternoon sunlight

Japanese maple

Linden rose

Then it was back to the boat and back to work for us. I took all the boxes, suitcases and duffels, pillows, bedding and  all other unattached items from the forward cabin (which had become a storage area while Peter was working on other area down below) to the the couch in the saloon to be able to clean. Meanwhile, Peter continued his work with electrical stuff. We took all the canvas covers off the foam mattresses and I gathered up all the linens we had used and dirty clothes and drove over to the marina lounge and laundry facility, which has two large washers and two dryers. Five loads took about three hours. It was after 11 p.m. by the time I returned, finding Peter still working, of course. We hadn't stopped for dinner earlier in the evening, so we just ate some snacks and put the canvas covers back on the two mattresses for the top bunk in the aft cabin. I made up the bed, and sometime after midnight, we fell asleep almost as soon as our heads touched the pillows.

Everything not in lockers or under the bed from the forward cabin

The last of the mold and mildew on board

Sunday was another bright, sunny day, perfect for scrubbing down the ceilings, walls, cabinetry and floors in the forward cabin and organizing it again. By afternoon, the forward cabin was ready for guests and the tools, parts and other items Peter needs to do his work had been confined to part of the seat at the dining table, the lower bunk in the aft cabin and the nav station. (The stuff migrates as we work on different areas and projects.) Meanwhile, Peter continued to work on pulling cables and making the electrical system as perfect as possible. 

Peter pulling cables

The new batteries

I had planned to do a bit more sightseeing, but the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center as well as the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Center closed at 4 p.m., and it was after 3:00 by the time we had a late lunch, so those places will have to wait to be enjoyed in the future. I had a few more items to pick up in Easton, and Sunday was our final day to have a car, so it was the last chance. Just as I was preparing to leave the boat, Peter noticed something on the back of my right knee. Oh, no! It was a large tick halfway buried in my skin, with its hind legs waving around as it was burrowing in. In all, after we had both stripped down to make a thorough search, five more small ticks were found on my legs but Peter had none. He pulled them out of me with small tweezers. Having never had ticks before, I was not aware of how small they could be. The little ones just looked like minuscule scabs, perhaps from mosquito bites, so we would have ignored them if the gross one had not been so obvious.

The head of the large tick embedded in my old, wrinkled skin

The boat yard general manager happened to be aboard the fire boat on the dock behind us (He is chief of the volunteer fire department.), and he advised going to an urgent care clinic immediately to get a prescription for doxycycline. So off I went to Easton. At the clinic, there was a family of four at the reception desk but no others waiting. The receptionist and the young Latino couple, with their young daughter and one-year old son, were trying to communicate without much success. The receptionist asked them about the son's symptoms and they looked at each other and shrugged. The receptionist tried re-phrasing the question, but still they were bewildered. With my (at-best) intermediate proficiency in Spanish, I stepped up and asked them, "¿Cuál es el problema?" They explained to me that the child had had an itchy rash and a fever for a day, information that I relayed to the receptionist. She said that the clinic did not usually treat infants, but the doctor would see them. She then began asking for more information from the father, starting with his telephone number. He had to type his phone number into a translator on his phone to be able to say the digits in English, so I could see that it might take a while. I went outside as I thought that I could just call the Kaiser advise nurse rather than see the doctor at the clnic. As it transpired, she was able to get a doctor to call in a prescription to the Walgreen's across the street from the clinic, so I didn't need to go to the clinic after all but I think that it was fortunate for the family struggling to communicate that I happened to show up. After shopping next door at Aldi's, I went to Walgreen's shortly before the pharmacy closed. They had not processed my prescription yet, so I would wait for Monday morning. As I turned to leave, I saw that the father was next in line, and he told me that the baby had an ear infection. Wishing them luck, I went on my way.

Back at the boat yard, Peter was working away and I joined in. We re-installed the saloon table as floor boards had been put back in place and accomplished other tasks on our to-do lists.

We were driving to Washington, D.C. on Monday to return the rental car to National airport and spend the night with Lori and Germán. After a morning of tasks on board, we left after lunch, stopping at Walgreen's for my prescription and just making it to Fawcett's, a marine supply store, in Annapolis before closing. When we arrived at their house, it was not a surprise to find Germán concocting another delicious and exotic meal. His cooking skills are amazing! After dinner, we continued to chat and were joined by Michael, Lori's son, and his girlfriend Simone, who is considering whether to take the DOGE buy-out from the EPA. Starting a career with government is challenging, to say the least, at this time. 

After spinach and leek omelets the next morning, the four of us left the house. Peter went to charge the car and return it to the airport while Lori dropped Germán and me downtown (He had an appointment with an ophthalmologist and I wanted to buy a small thank-you gift for them and admire the architecture of Washington.) and then went to get Peter. Less than an hour later, we were on our way to the boat. Lori had made a delicious salad that morning, which we ate for lunch at the clubhouse when we arrived. After lunch, they set off for a bike ride on the back roads and Peter and I got back to work. When they returned a few hours later, around 6:30 p.m., after 30 miles, Peter and I had the mainsail spread out on the rigger's dock and were putting the battens in place. With their help, it only took us a couple hours to rig the sail to the mast. We were planning to go out for dinner, but Capsize, the restaurant next door to the boat yard, had closed its kitchen when Lori and Germán got there before us around 8:30, although the staff had assured me when I called an hour earlier that the kitchen would be open until 9:00. The two other restaurants in town are closed on Tuesday. Luckily, I had made a big batch of ratatouille a few days before and I had tortillini, so we enjoyed our first meal at our saloon table since our return to Mantra. Lori and Germán, exhausted after riding for 30 miles and then helping us with the mainsail, went to bed, but Peter and I took advantage of the calm and dry weather to put the genoa on the roller furler on the bow in the dark, which took over an hour. Then, we were also really tired and called it a night before rain set it.

The mainsail on the rigger's dock

Peter showing Germán how to secure the battens

Lori and Peter with the mainsail

Today, it is chilly and drizzling. After eggs, English muffins (Our new house batteries now make it possible to use the toaster!) and fruit salad for breakfast, Lori and Germán, with many thanks from us for all their help, left. And our work continued! For the second day in a row, I took a nap, which is quite unusual for me; perhaps it is a side effect of the doxycycline, or maybe it my reaction to gloomy weather. Peter has the Starlink dish ready to install (but the technician did not show up today as planned), and we primed the heat and A/C unit; it is working, bringing the inside temperature up from 64 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I have been writing this lengthy, delayed blog post, feeding us and tidying up the best I can. (The nav station has now reached "critical mess.") My next task is to draw the provision locker charts so that other people can locate food in the depths of the shelving, and then I will prepare a hearty, warm meal for us.

"Critical mess" at the nav station

For insurance purposes, the boat is being surveyed on Friday, so we need to get everything ship-shape before then. After that, as soon as the new life raft arrives, we can depart on our great adventure.

One last photo: the stationary dock at high tide (not spring tide) on this rainy day.