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Another few miles brought us to
Leonardtown, Maryland, to spend the night before directing our
course up the Potomac. Pura Vida’s engine needs to run at
least six hours every couple of days to keep the batteries charged, but when
anchorages were created they didn’t have our requirements in
mind. In this neck of the woods we can run short days or we can
run long
days, but only a much faster boat could combine any two of our
stops.
On Monday morning, Memorial
Day, we woke up in a soft gray mist of morning fog but it
didn’t seem thick enough that we’d have to wait it out. We
started out, but it seemed to get murkier by the minute. We could
hear boats passing but couldn’t see them, and I convinced Tom to
point us closer to land and wait until we could see more
than twenty feet. The anchor sank, the engine
stopped and the world went silent. Nothing is quieter than
floating in fog; I could hear my hair grow. And, speaking of
hair, Tom looked over at me for the first time since we’d
stopped and he started to laugh. “I never saw your hair look like
that before,” he finally said. I might have taken offense
except I caught a glimpse of myself. I bore a close resemblance
to a prickly pear.
By 10:15 a halo of sun broke
through and forms on the shore began to take shape. We were on
our way again but we had, however, forgotten one very important
tenet: Never travel near a large metropolitan area on a summer
holiday. Every Sea Ray owner in Washington DC must’ve been on
the river, racing full throttle to get home in a hurry and
burning a gallon of gas every 42 seconds while doing it. The
Potomac was one  enormous
wake. On top of that, the weather had  turned hot, muggy
and buggy. After twelve long hours we were finally at Mattawoman Creek, the nearest place to stop.
Tuesday was a big improvement
and we
dawdled a short distance to Alexandria. Along the way sites
like Fort Washington and Mount Vernon poked their foresides
through tree-lined embankments. Ferries loaded with waving
tourists zipped by. This was a good day.
 By mid-morning we were
at
Alexandria’s City Marina at the end 
of King Street.
Once there, we
were squarely in the middle of their 400th
anniversary celebration of the founding of Jamestown with an old
square-rigger, festivities, and costumed guides all over the
waterfront.
We
came to Alexandria to see Tom’s old friend Ray (www.olgoat.com),
a retired torpedoman and submariner, and we met at the Fish
Market Restaurant 
in Old Town. He and Tom got plenty of exercise
hoisting oversized glasses of beer and our entertainment came in
the form of the person sitting next to me who described a book she was
writing about flying submarines. I think she was flying pretty
high herself. Ray drove us to a place
called Mike’s in Springfield for dinner where they make
outstanding crab cakes! Everything else must’ve been pretty
good too because it was packed on a Tuesday night. We spent the
next two days walking and exploring Old Town and hanging out with Ray.
(click on pictures to enlarge)
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