Rock Hall Harbor to Swan Creek, MD

2.0 nm
Wind: S 10-15 knots, gusting to 25
Maximum speed: 3.5 knots
Average speed: 2.4 knots
Latitude: 39°08.85’N
Longitude: 076°15.36’W

There’s more bad weather headed this way, quelle surprise. They had been predicting a cold front moving through for a long time, but I didn’t think that meant sixty-knot winds, which is what they’re predicting again for tomorrow. So this morning we got our necessary town stuff done—Karl put in the new macerator pump and rebuilt the salt-water pump, which is unfortunately still not working, and I trekked into town again to exchange his West Marine boots, get thirty more pounds of ice, and use the internet access at the local wireless café, because the boat’s is too unreliable.

I wasn’t able to post, though, because I used all of my bandwidth to download the charts that we’ve been missing from our computer, although I ran out of room on the computer halfway through. That means no more room for pictures, either, which is a major bummer. The computer’s a gift, a four-year-old hand-me-down, so it has a miniscule hard drive. I wanted to buy an external hard drive before we left, but it’s one of the things that got shoved to the bottom of the list. So we’ll have to make do with the charts we have until we get a new hard drive.

Karl finally came and got me, and we both thanked the very wonderful internet café for the use of their facilities, and we were grateful to drink coffee, too, since we’ve been doing without since we ran out of water two days ago. No water means no coffee. We lugged the ice and the boots back to the boat, and then finally refilled our water tanks from a construction site near the water, lugging our six-gallon water tanks back and forth, while the oystermen watched. I think we looked fairly hardcore. Finally, when we were almost done, one of them offered us a ride in his truck. It was very kind, but it was a little too late. Keeps you strong, anyway.

I’m relieved to have water again, and to have been able to do laundry, but this no shower thing is driving me crazy. I don’t know how long I can deal with it. We finally fled the seawall to a neighboring anchorage in Swan Creek, where we can wait out this storm and get progressively stinkier. I’m pinning my hopes on anchorage, which has a town dock where there are allegedly $1 showers. But chances are those will be shut down for the season, too, and we don’t have a way to contact them. We also have a friend from the AT who might be able to pick us up and take us to showers. Here’s hoping.