July 20 – Friday
More rain.
After breakfast (PMB’s French toast in recognition of our dock neighbors), we decided to lock down and take a slip at Ayling’s marina located on the river at the bottom of locks. Ayling’s is a true “boat yard” with sheds full of old Chris Craft, Owens and other brands of wooden cabin cruisers from the 50s & 60s and some much older. Many of these classics are owner projects and some are fully restored, and magnificent. Still others will likely remain in the corner of the lot with torn plastic covering them for 10 or 20 more years. We have seen a lot of older wooden boats on the water – I think the fresh water environment and covered winter storage must be very kind to boats. Ayling’s does a lot of wooden boat work.
Heavy rain continued all day and a fellow we met from the boat behind us (from Ottawa), told me Ottawa had received a record amount – nearly 3”. Interestingly, this man’s name was Al and his wife is Linda. The couple we had aboard for dinner last night is Alan and Linda. What a coincidence – this is the sort of thing you have time to think about while cruising. Alan and Linda (from FL) were still at Ayling’s and in the evening, after the rain finally stopped, we walked to their boat but they were not aboard. However, another trawler had come in late in the afternoon and we noticed it was flying an MTOA pennant and as good members, we dutifully tapped on their cabin and were invited aboard. Ken and Sharon Russell live in Port St.Lucie, FL and Ken remembered meeting us last fall in Hampton, VA. where we discussed their plan to leave their boat “Barefoot Again” in the Chesapeake for the winter and I suggested Rock Hall. It turns out, their boat was on-the-hard at Swan Creek Marina about 50 yards from FLIGHT. This cruising scene is a small world. The Russell’s are meeting a friend in Ottawa and then will be cruising back south via our same route so we expect to see more of them in the weeks ahead.