Another long distance of travel today but all of it was up on plane at about 21 mph. The first part was on the Chesapeake Bay and the remainder about 50 miles was up the Potomac River. The river is very wide for the first half so going on plane was not an issue. Around lunch time we did fall back to trawler speed, about 8 mph, so that Linda could make lunch and we could eat it peacefully. While going slow we saw this tall ship going down river so I altered course so that we could get some close up photos. We could see the whites of their eyes, at least those that did not have a patch over them, but unfortunately this is the only photo that we got. Operator error.A short time later, just as we finished eating, a Coast Guard boat came over and two officers boarded us. They wanted to do a vessel inspection. I had no problem with that since I knew, thanks to the inspection at the ALGCA Rendezvous, that we were fully compliant and even exceeded US regulations. The officer, however, got cold feet when he finally figured out that we were a foreign flagged vessel. It was not obvious because I cover all of our flags when going fast in the boat so that they do not get shredded to pieces. Anyway he did not want to do all of the extra paper work involved with checking a foreign vessel. Fine with us so it was entertaining to watch them try to back back on their own boat. It seems that standard operating procedures for both the Coast Guard and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) is to jump from boat to boat while both are moving slowly. Well jumping down onto our swim platform was no problem but climbing the two and a half feet back onto their own boat was a different kettle of fish. It took the two of them a good 10 minutes and they were soaking wet by the time they finally succeeded. Oh well a harmless diversion.
We arrived at Colonial Beach in the early afternoon, got a pump out and settled down for the evening. We decided not to go into town on this day because we thought that we might stay an extra night. It was the start of the Memorial Day holiday weekend and the marina was to be filled to capacity. We were supposedly OK for 2 nights but then had to get out. Well, later in the day we were told that the boat with the reservations was coming in a day early so we would have to move. No problem, we thought, we would just find another place between here and Washington and have a chance to explore another place. WRONG. It was the holiday weekend and it seems that it is the unofficial start of summer down here. All transient slips were already booked. Fortunately, we were able to get our slip in Washington early so the next morning we headed off for DC.
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