It was time for us to head home to help Daughter #3 move to a new apartment. After the angst of trying to get Ubers and Lyfts to the airport in the post-bar-closing/pre-dawn hours, we decided to schedule a car. We were thrilled that our driver was going to be there to pick us up at the Baltimore Yacht Club at 3:54 am.

Did you notice our mistake?

We weren’t at the Baltimore Yacht Club. We were at the Maryland Yacht Club. An hour away. The driver called us when he arrived in Baltimore at 3:54 and we weren’t there. It would have taken an hour to get to our marina and another half hour to get to the airport. We cancelled the ride (We paid him. We’re not monsters.) and tried to get an Uber. A driver nearby was currently driving another person and picked up our ride. Woohoo! We could see on the app when he dropped off his other passenger…and then he promptly dropped our ride.

So we tried to get a Lyft. It was now 4:35 am. Thankfully, there was a driver in our area, and he was just 8 minutes away. He picked us up, and we didn’t even care that he was obviously as high as a kite. He said it was his birthday, and he had been out celebrating. When he got done partying, he had to start driving to get back some of the money he spent enjoying his special day. We were his last ride before he was going to bed.

We arrived at the airport at 5:11 am, and we got to check our luggage at 5:17. We missed the deadline of 45 minutes ahead of our flight, so there was no guarantee our bags would get on the flight. That would be important later.

We raced through security, where PreCheck and Clear were worth their weight in gold, and we boarded our plane with the boarding group that was called after ours. The Delta app let us know all of our bags made it on the plane. Whew!

HOWEVER, two of our three bags made it to our destination in Wisconsin, the other went to Detroit. Because we missed the 45-minute cutoff, the airline refused to deliver the bag and I had to run down to the airport the next day to pick it up.

I like to travel, but this day was a headache. We did, however, enjoy helping our daughter move to her cute new place. We also had a great time visiting with all our daughters, their hangers-on (Owen’s name for their husband/boyfriends), and our two adorable grandkids.

On Friday night, it was back to the MARYLAND Yacht Club and the boat.

Early the next morning, we left for Delaware. On our way out, we took the advice of our new friends and took the boat over to the Francis Scott Key Buoy. The Buoy marks the spot the prison boat Mr. Key resided upon was anchored when he was inspired to write our national anthem. We circled that buoy a couple times to get just the right picture. Unfortunately, we are not professional photographers. Our artistry was not evident in the resulting photos.

Once again, we had some beautiful water on the Chesapeake as we headed out onto the Bay. Also once again, the chatter on the radio was obnoxious. Almost immediately, a man was upset that a boat whizzed by and unnecessarily waked him. The man continued to let all of tarnation know that the fast boater did not respond to his repeated calls for an answer or apology. Later, another boater was also a victim of the fast boater, and the two casualties of the errant boat commiserated over the radio on Channel 16 about how awful the fast boater was.

After that, we must have heard a couple dozen “radio checks.” I don’t know what it is about the Chesapeake and their radio checks. Every now and then, the Coast Guard would make an announcement reminding boaters of the purpose of Channel 16. Sometimes an annoyed boater would tell people to use a different channel. It was just plain weird, and we haven’t heard this many radio checks in any other area.

Aside from the incessant radio chatter, it was a beautiful day. We are enjoying the bluffs we see to our west, and we are happy to find more texture to the landscape. It’s just a reminder of how very flat the coastline is in our southeastern states. We really have found something to like in every area we’ve been.

The waterway began to narrow, and soon we approached the C&D Canal. There were a couple No Wake Zones near the beginning, but there was no speed limit on the rest. I hadn’t looked at the map thoroughly beforehand so I was surprised that the canal was not a straight passage but had curves and turns throughout. It was also pleasantly wide for two-way traffic, and there were a ton of bridges to photograph.

When Owen made our reservation at Delaware City, he had been instructed to call the marina on the phone when we went under the last bridge in the canal. Owen did. Then he was instructed to follow the channel and call on the radio when we got to the last of five red markers in the water and radio again. Then he was instructed to pass no more than 40 feet from the green marker into the channel and aim toward the red fire boat and radio again. Then he was told to wait because they were putting another boat in the water. I’m beginning to see where this radio chatter thing comes from. Eventually, we got to the fuel dock where some very nice people tied us up before charging us $6.59 for diesel. This kind of sounds like a ransom situation, doesn’t it? The people there are wonderful, and we were happy to be there.

At 4:00, the marina offers a daily briefing on weather conditions for boaters who intend to move to the next Looper stop, Cape May. It was instantly clear that we weren’t leaving the next day. The weather was okay where we were, but the Delaware Bay was going to be the Delaware Washing Machine for the next 24 hours.

So we went out for a nice dinner and made our plans for the next day. Good thing we were in a nice town to visit for an extra day!