Depth survey at Herrington and shopping

Saturday 13 October: Site-survey in Herrington Harbor and shopping.
Very peaceful night, no lapping, no noises; certainly a very comfortable place to moor up in. Early morning we hear rain pitter-pattering on the deck and its chilly. So we switch on the heating and stay snug in bed for a while after the alarm goes off.
After looking on the chart last evening, Glen is now determined to get manual depth measurements on some sections of the channel to Herrington Harbor. So he calls Lucy to inquire if anybody from the marina can take him out in a dinghy. Request on which he gets a positive reply.
Armed with the hand held depth sounder, we go ashore to put our hire car to some good use for the last day we have it. I would like a last bit of shopping before we leave USA, some Sketchers and Ipanema. I am deprived of such goodies in the Caribbean islands. And as we get into the car, the thermometer shows 52F, no wonder we felt so cold in the morning.
We settle for the nearest shopping mall, and as soon as we walk into the first shop, Glen finds his rescue: “how about you have a break from me and take your time shopping, spoil yourself, while I go to the yard and check depth and other details”, he tells me. Which I agree with… well, it’s nice to have some time to myself, especially while shopping! Let’s just hope it will take him a while. A good while! 🙂
So I happily keep myself entertained, buying some sketchers, dresses and leggings. Though the best shop was Bed Bath and Beyond. I could spend hours in there. When Glen returns to pick me up, I walk him straight in this shop, and we chose two new memory foam mats (for the companionway and our bath), silicone straws for cocktails, silicone ice cube trays and deep bowls for soup. All very useful stuff!
As we drive back to Cloudy Bay, Glen tells me about his investigation at the Harrington Harbor. The marina launch took him out to the dredged channel and he took measurements all the way back to the slip where we will potentially haul out. The least depth was 2.5m (our draft exactly) at the bailout slip. Otherwise it is a constant 2.9-3.1m. And this is low tide. So it’s decided, we go there on Monday.
Back onboard we have a warming tea and look up AirBnB in the area, as we need accommodation while Cloudy Bay is in the yard. Not a lot to choose from, but we do manage to find a place to our liking, and made an inquiry on it. A bit of a drive from the yard, but it will have to do.
While on the laptop, we received on our blog a nice comment from Ray, one of our followers. He lives in the area and works in the boating industry. So when we read his invitation to call him, Glen jumps at it and during the call he finds out lots of useful info about the jobs we want to do on Cloudy Bay. Always good to have an unbiased contact when entering a new yard.
Since it’s Saturday and we planned it mostly as a “rest & fun day”, we decide to drive to Annapolis to see what night life has to offer during yet another boat show. Last week was the sailboat show, this week is the motor boat show. What a good idea not to mix the two! We land on a very interesting bar, quite busy, mostly young people and we assume they could be students of the Naval Academy. We sip our drinks and enjoy the atmosphere, and by 11pm we are ready to leave, rather tired from our days activities.
But first we need to drop off the rental car. Then a short Uber drive later we are back at Cloudy Bay and in the warmth of our saloon. What would we do without this heating system?! We certainly used it this summer more than ever before. And we crash in bed, looking forward to a jobs-active day onboard tomorrow.