June 2008
When we arrived back in the Chesapeake Bay we went to visit friends in Annapolis and discovered we had arrived when the Naval College was celebrating graduation. Part of this was an air display by the Blue Angels right over the top of our mooring! Unlike the Red Arrows in the UK these are not trainers with extra power but combat ready F/A-18 Hornets which are bigger, heavier and less agile. Our grandstand seats were amazing.
Annapolis was not all fun and games however. We discovered that our bilge had filled up with Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF) which normally lubricates the gearbox. We soaked it all up in pads and refilled the gearbox hoping the leak was slow. It was not. Clearly motoring to our summer haul out in Cambridge was not going to happen. We left the mooring under our genoa only having left the mainsail with Quantum for minor repairs and laundering. The wind filled in to nearly 30 knots and we rocketed down the Bay and up the Choptank River without needing the main or the engine! How lucky was that.
At Generation III Marina we arranged for them to send the transmission to Mack Borg in New Jersey for a rebuild and set about putting antifouling on the bottom as our copper epoxy has finally run out. We also arranged for our cutlass bearing on the propeller shaft to be shaft to be changed.

The Pump Out Boat at Annapolis will come and empty your holding tank for a small fee
Two of the Blue Angels doing a head on pass over the Naval College Football Field
Two Blue Angels flying together with one inverted - they did it with four Angels later
Four Angels in formation across the mooring field

Back in Colorado we were really pleased to see Bridget, Mark and the grandchildren, Aspen and Christopher. We learned that the very hard winter had destroyed the guttering on the back of the cabin and damaged the chimney stack as well. As if that was not enough we had a visit from a young bear who played with all four of the down pipes, breaking them off at the bottom by twisting them and also biting right through them repeatedly. We arranged for replacements and repairs and planned to fit gutter and roof heating before we left for the winter.
As usual at this time of the year our well had become artesian and we had a good little steam running down the lot. This usually dries up as the weather gets warmer and the snow melt disappears from the mountains. Aspen and Chloe (Golden Retriever) love to play and ‘swim’ in the water and are sad when it goes away.

A neat set of tooth marks left by the bear in one of our down pipes
Our well head with copious artesian water flowing
A section of our temorary Spring stream
Mole diggings from beneath the snow blanket

Our pop-up camper seems to have survived the winter without damage although the solar panel did not keep the battery charged because of the heavy snow. Even when the snow cleared the battery voltage was too low for the solar panel regulator to function! I connected the internal charger to the AC and the battery came right back to life! Following that the solar panel started working too so no long term damage.

We have major projects for the summer now including camping trips, having a double garage built and installing the gutter/roof heating to minimise the risk of ice damage. We also want to continue our forest improvement programme so that new growth is encouraged and fire risk reduced as far as possible. Eleanor has decided to get married to Martin next summer in Colorado so our first important task is to tour prospective venues and help them to choose one. Should be fun!

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