Continued the southeasterly transit of the Potomac towards the Chesapeake Bay. Leaving Colonial Beach I entered the southerly 10+ miles of the Navy’s Dahlgren practice range. Contacted the range by radio and the range was not hot or active so I was able to do a straight shot through the range. Light breeze, calm seas and 32 nm later I arrived at Point Lookout Marina near Ridge MD – just a couple miles westerly of the intersection with the Chesapeake. Tied up for the remainder of the day. The marina was a decent marina, an easy tie though fixed docks. Fixed docks generally mean a bit more difficult for an old man like me to get off and on the boat. At high tide it is a long ways down over the cockpit rail to the dock in most cases requiring a step or short ladder on the dock and at low tide access from the swim platform to the dock requires adding a step onto thee swim platform. A fixed dock also means that your tie has to be able to compensate for tidal changes. Floating docks are, besides floating, lower to the water and pretty much allow me, no matter high, low or whatever tide, to just take the step down from the aft cockpit to the swim platform and then a short step up to the dock. Very EZ.
The marina’s on-site restaurant is closed weekdays and town was a good walk away so I broke out the spaghetti, sauce and ground beef for a delish dinner. Cooking aboard is much easier on the boat than it was in the motor home. As there wasn’t much/anything to do/see it was a quiet restful time and I enjoyed a beautiful evening and sunset.
Did I see Scotland! Did you take a wrong turn somewhere?
😆
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Yeah, that was Scotland. But I draw the line there. No Italy for me. I once had an Italian neighbor….
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Curious as to why it’s easier to cook on the boat – more room? I also just caught the “putt10” ❤️ Love your blog
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More room is part of it. Both were 3 burner stoves but the boat’s are bigger in size and the cook top surface area is also bigger. RV was propane and so using it meant a tank needed to be refilled sooner. Boat is electric which at a marina is plentiful and at anchor is produced by large generator running off 850 gallon diesel tank which seems plentiful. Glass top is much easier to clean.
Also much more prep surface. Then there was wash water disposal. RV had 40 gal grey water waste tank for all non-toilet (black water) water holding. All sink water and shower water etc went to the grey water tank and would fill qwikly. Illegal to dump on the ground so that meant dumping required connecting to some other sewer source. That can be a PITA. In non Great Lakes, sink and shower type water can be directly discharged and piped overboard. Like your home, you just never think about it. It just goes away. With a 40 gal holding tank and similar sized fresh water tank, one would never run a washing machine on the RV when not hooked up to campground water and sewer. With nearly 300 gal of fresh water holding tank and limitless grey water disposal, no thought is given to just running a load whenever.
To provide some counter space in the RV, covers are used over the sink meaning either use sink or counter, not both. No such issue on the boat. Likewise there’s more than enuf space for all the little bottles of spices etc and cooking utensils on the boat. Of course not all boats are built equal so you need to keep usage in mind when shopping (same goes for closet space). Some bigger boats are built for fishing, some for living and in the living category some of those are weekenders and some are more full time. On my motorhome I’d never carry, for example, a strainer for draining spaghetti water because of space. On my boat, yes.
My MH was only 30’ with some of that sq footage dedicated to engine compartment. Boat is 50’ with engine space on its own lower/basement level. The boat in areas is also multi level, two story living, so in general everything on the boat is more normal living in terms of space and 5 times more complicated in terms of systems and operation.
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Thank you for such a detailed answer, I’m a logistics geek so I find it fascinating. One of the many reasons I enjoy your writing. So often travel books don’t cover what I’d like to know 😁
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And what I’m often guilty of – over explaining till readers or listeners fall asleep.
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