Springtime on Kent Island: 4/2 - 4/4

—Blogpost written by Bob 

Friday, April 2

It was surprising cold again today--in the high 30's when we got up!  It remained cool most of the day, eventually reaching into the mid-40's in the afternoon.

Lola laying in our enclosed cockpit
 in the early afternoon sun.

After my last radiation treatment of the week, we went out for lunch at Italian Market and then returned home to Kent Island.  Eastbound traffic on Route 50 was heavily congested because of the construction of new tool booths and the fact that it was Friday (beach traffic).  This week's radiation treatments wore me down a little this afternoon--I took a two-hour nap in the v-berth.

Saturday, April 3

It was still cool in the morning and the breeze was still out of the northerly quadrant.  The outside temperature got down to 32 degrees F last night and the (reverse-cycle) heat came on quite frequently.  In the afternoon the sun warmed things up considerably (to 49 degrees!).

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We drove to the Starbuck's on Kent Island today for a light breakfast.  Starbuck's is still in the mode of take out only--no dine in options because of the pandemic.  My original reason for going to Starbucks was to use their WiFi for an update to my system files on my iPad but I couldn't receive their WiFi signal from outside their restaurant.  (I tried to do an update last night using the marina's WiFi and the estimated time to complete it was 2 days!  However, I think the update was done overnight.)

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We are beginning to see some activity around the marina, more people visiting their boats, taking off winter tarps, etc. but still there are a lot of empty slips.

Winter tarps are finally being removed
from most boats in the marina.

One of the many original pilings in the marina.  
Note the white wooden slats that surround
the upper portion of the piling and
the colorful metal cap
on the piling.

The old methods of construction served this marina well over a long time (several decades).  Where pilings have been recently replaced, neither the wooden slats nor the metal caps have been used. They haven't even used pressure-treated lumber for the replacement of dock boards!  It seems like everything around the marina is now based on short-term costs rather than a long life.  (I didn't expect this type of attitude on Kent Island but I guess it's everywhere nowadays.)

Sunday, April 4 (Easter)

The outside temperature was a bit warmer last night (in the 40's) and this morning, hitting 50 degrees by 9 AM and expected to hit 65 degrees F by this afternoon.

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Since it was the beginning of another quarter, changing the fresh water filter cartridge was on my agenda for the day.  I also cleaned our raw water strainer for the A/C and put a bromine tablet into the strainer to keep marine growth to a minimum--I will be doing this weekly through the remainder of our time here on Kent Island.  The strainer basket had some mild marine growth already this early in the year even though the water temperature was still only in the high 40's I'm guessing.  

The water temperature in Chestertown, several miles upstream of us, was 50 degrees F and the water temperature at the Annapolis entrance buoy was still showing 40.3 degrees (but I'm sure now that it has been stuck for months.)

s/v Rainy Days in her new slip
at Castle Marina

While we are not very religious, we bought a thick slice of ham to have for our Easter lunch.  With string beans and cucumber salad, our lunch seemed quite festive.

Our new slip is #TH2 which
stands for "T-head #2".
It is at the end of
"A" Dock.

We unloaded the dinghy from the bow of the boat to the dock so that we could work on bottom painting soon.  We washed down the paint chips that loosened from the old dinghy bottom paint.   As we were moving the dinghy we realized that there was gasoline leaking from the fuel filter on the dingy--a hole has rusted in it from all the salt water exposure over the past 5 years.  I replaced the filter cartridge with one I had onboard as a spare.

Old fuel filter from our dinghy.

By 5 PM we were finished with our dinghy errands for the day and we were both beat, a sign that we ARE getting older--sometimes feeling "too old for this shit!"  Stay tuned for more spring activities...

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