The day started off as usual with a great breakfast of bacon, eggs and blob blueberry muffin with V-8 juice. I had a since of urgency about getting moving this morning because I had set a time for the rendezvous with Stuart Harshberger at 12:00 in Queenstown and I wasn’t sure just how far it was and how long it would take us. I busied around and get the boat ready to move and we were on our way by 7:30. There was a nice breeze, however it was from the southwest and we were heading southwest so we motored all the way to Queenstown. I was surprised to find that the distance to our destination was a bit more than 10 miles so we arrived well before the appointed time.
The cruising guide had little to say about the town. There are no marinas there; however, there is a town dock at which one can tie up for up to two hours. The book does go into great detail concerning the entry into the Queenstown River. It is evidently heavily shoaled and the passage is quite narrow. They even comment that grounding during entry is an “oh well” experience because the bottom is soft and easily backed off from. We followed the directions carefully and had no difficulty getting to the landing. Once there, we tied up and headed for the heart of town. We had an hour of wandering time before we were to meet Stuart.
The town of Queenstown is a truly lovely town. Virtually every home has manicured lawns and beautiful flowers. It is a quiet, sleepy place. As we walked about, we saw almost no one. We were looking for a carry-out or grocery to pick up a few things, however, there were none to be found. In the heart of town, we found the post office, a pizzeria, and a historic courthouse and that was about it.
We headed back toward the boat, found a nice spot on the landing lawn beneath a shade tree, and sat down to enjoy the stillness until Stuart arrived. Upon his arrival, we wandered down to the boat and as you can imagine, we talked boats and sailing. He had recently sold his Balboa 26 and purchased another 26 footer that seems to have several good characteristics that the Balboa lacks. One of these is the fact that it has a keel design that doesn’t leak. Our leaking keel is a constant gnawing concern. I am not concerned that we are going to sink outright, but I am concerned about the batteries running down and the bilge pumps not working. For us that is not a serious problem because we are with the boat almost all of the time that it is in the water but those who leave their boat anchored or moored for the summer must check on their boat frequently to be sure that it is not full of water.
Going to lunch was fun. Stuart has an older Porsche which has a small back seat. Luckily, Janine is small and fit nicely with the front seat moved forward, however, I had to fold my legs just so to get in and out. We drove to a nice restaurant called Annie’s. Janine had a oyster sandwich and I had a lump crab meat melt sandwich which was out of sight. Over lunch we discussed places to go, things to see and generally got to know each other. Stuart is an engineer with his own small firm dealing with prosthetic limbs. It was an interesting, most enjoyable meal.
Stuart drove us back to the boat, we said our “so longs” and we motored about ½ mile up the Queenstown River where we found a quiet cove into which we dropped our anchor. It was really hot and only 2:00 in the afternoon but our plans of heading for Baltimore tomorrow dictated that we start from here in the morning. Fortunately, our little anchorage came supplied with a nice sandy beach under some shade trees so we pulled on our suits and allowed Damn Dink to carry us to that cool refreshing spot. We both swam and sat on the beach and read. It was really nice and relaxing.
At about 6:00, we decided to head back to the boat and think about supper. We both considered that the luncheon meal was big enough to be our main meal for the day and I missed having my Spam so we had our typical sailing lunch for supper.
They are calling for severe weather after midnight so I battened down the things on the outside of the boat in preparation for some winds that could reach 60 knots. I feel that this anchorage is a good one, well protected from wave action and somewhat protected by trees from wind. I checked the radar on my iphone just before bed and saw no storm activity going on at all. We shall see. It is 9:30.
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