Spill The Wine Sailing

Check out the Baltimore Landmark "Domino Sugar" sign Other than "Spill The Wine", we actually have a few other names of affection for the boat.  When we are sailing, we like to call her "The Big Fat Pig" because she sits down in the water and gives a comfortable ride... nothing seems to rattle her.  But when we are at dock we call her "The Floating Condo", and that is what she is now.... in her slip, our new downtown Baltimore floating abode.   The Arrival pic: happy to be in Baltimore Maryland We chose Harbor East Marina because it's a sweet section of Baltimore between Inner Harbor and Fells Point.  It's ultra modern with zillions of restaurants and shopping opportunities. The other good news is:  it's about a thirty minute walk to Camden Yards. Go O's! So now the big trip has a cleat hitch on it.  One down, many to go.  It's funny how when one reaches a milestone it takes a w...

Relaxing on the bow of Spill The Wine From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Gunkholing is a boating term referring to a type of cruising in shallow or shoal water, meandering from place to place, spending the nights in coves. The term refers to the gunk, or mud, typical of the creeks, coves, marshes, sloughs, and rivers that are referred to as gunkholes. While not necessary, gunkholers typically seek out the serenity of isolated anchorages over the crowds of marinas and popular bays, and a minimal draft is preferred, since gunkholers tend to go as far up and into the gunkholes as possible, seeking ever more inaccessible destinations. Two Gunkholes we tried.... Two out of Thousands! While we may be Chesapeake Bay amateur gunkholers, we have learned this - the bay is awesome, and here's why:  There are seemingly endless inlets and creeks which are all beautiful anchorage opportunities (i.e. Gunkholing) and after two days on hook,  we're hoo...

YES! Spill the Wine and her crew at the Waterside Marina, Norfolk VA Not sure if you can tell, but we're pretty happy about being here!  In fact, we've almost bruised ourselves from patting each other on the back.  But we're here, in the Chesapeake Bay - YES! Al (a.k.a. "Mr. Fitch") is off to Germany on a school trip so now we are on easy street exploring the bay with some time on our hands until we reach our final goal of Baltimore. We left Wrightsville Beach with forecast winds of 30 knots.  Normally, that would be too high for a pleasure cruise but it was to be following seas so we decided... heck yea!  The wind didn't disappoint and NOAA was just a little off on their wave predictions of 3-5 feet.... it was more like 5-8, but with the following seas it was an easy ride and the 30 knot breeze pushed the boat beautifully, we actually felt it could be a lot more before any kind of concern.  The green water breaking waves were fun ...

And that’s just what we did, continuing our trip north, but this time with my son Al and his friend Nathan, whom by the end of the trip we were affectionately referring to as " Mr. Abercrombie " and " Mr. Fitch ". We’ve had the boat in Charleston City Marina (the Mega Dock) for the month of May and after arriving with the boys and playing in Charleston for a few days it was finally time to shove off. With two new high school seniors onboard dedicated only to their summer tans, it was a little like being in an Abercrombie Fitch commercial, or maybe Ralph Lauren, or maybe J-Crew...... You get the idea.    But it made for good use of the camera. The first leg was an easy 65 nautical mile trip from Charleston to Georgetown light.  Light winds, easy seas.  We anchored in Mosquito Creek which had us worried about the mosquitos of course…. but we should have been worried about the huge horse flies.  Because of them, we did very...