After we made it to the Chesapeake Bay, we headed down the Sassafras River to Skip Jack Marina for a couple of nights. The first night we got there we got settled at the dock and had a nice dinner at the small restaurant right at the marina. It was ok bar type food but we were really wanting crab cakes now that we are in the Chesapeake Bay. They said no crab cakes since the labor storages have affected every industry and it seems that the crabbing industry is no different. Not enough workers to go out and bring in the crab traps. As a result, the cost of crab cakes has about doubled. I guess we will have to wait for crab cakes and pick our places to eat them wisely.

The next day we did some boat projects, vacuuming the A/C vents, doing some laundry, etc. We went for a walk around the area.

We saw a guy motoring around in his dinghy in the marina and said hi, so he pulled over and chatted for a bit. His name is Nash and his girlfriend Lisa. They were on a boat anchored out in the river from the marina. We chatted for quite a while and then invited them to come back later for happy hour.

We spent the afternoon taking the dinghy out for a ride to check out the town on the other side of the river. There are about 3 – 4 marinas in this area and a small town. It seems like the nearest grocery store was still a long walk even after we took our dinghy down the river. Just as we were contemplating this, Nash calls our cell phone and says he and Lisa are taking their bikes to the store and asks if we need anything. How nice!! Yes, would you mind picking up some beer and bread please? Awesome!

Here are some photos from our dinghy excursion.

This was one of the other marinas in the area. We pulled up to check out the small store they had there but it was closed. It seems like a lot of places are closed for the season already.

Then we pulled up to Georgetown Yacht Basin. They too had a store there however, this one was open. It was a marine supply store. We always browse around in case there is something we need. Mark remembered that one of the fittings on our A/C broke before and he had a replacement part for it. So, we bought a new one to replace the replacement for next time. Yes, stuff always breaks, there will be a next time.

After we came out of the store, we saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree right near the dinghy dock. I was able to get a good photo of him.

We thought about taking the dinghy further up the river, however there was a bridge up ahead and the bridge seemed rather low to even get our dinghy under it. They bridge can lift however we didn’t want to raise the bridge just to get our dinghy under it.

On the way back to the boat, I took a photo of this boat. We are starting to think about some day, what if we didn’t have a sail boat any more, what kind of boat would you want. I like this one.

After our excursion, Nash and Lisa dinghied over to our boat with bread and beer in hand for a bit of happy hour aboard Painkiller. We learned all about their journey so far and how they recently purchased their boat. They had some engine problems earlier and we chatted about labor shortages that extend into the marine industry as well. Nash said at one point, he call a mechanic who proudly boasted “Guaranteed to call you back within 3 weeks!” Too funny, but at the same time not. We had a great time at happy hour and said good night to Nash and Lisa and will likely see them again along the way as everyone we meet is heading toward Annapolis and then south.

Tomorrow morning we will head to another anchorage further south in the Chesapeake Bay.