Seabright: 33 years and counting

We took a short trip this past weekend to the Tides Inn. to celebrate our 33rd wedding anniversary. Our son Billy and his girlfriend Courtney joined us for the festivities. We go about once a year and have a great time. The funny thing is the Tides Inn is about 20 min by car and 2.5 hrs by boat.
Here to the right is the view of our home as we pulled off the dock.

But we go by boat and enjoy staying at the Marina, even more so now that they have completely redone the docks with new floating ones, our favorite type. The Tides is a very unique place that we really like. It is like "old Florida" type place but in VA. It still has the original charm, not the splash and sizzle of over- designed trendy places. Warm welcomes, relaxing and comfortable is how we see it and, of course, good food. For this corner of the world it attracts both locals like us but also folks from other parts of the country and Europe. If you listen you will hear several different languages with French and German the most common. Lots of families visit.

Jeannie has decided to master ship handling and took Seabright out and off the dock. She had to navigate the tricky S curve in leaving our creek and out to Fleets Bay and the Chesapeake Bay while I handled the fenders and lines. We use headsets made by Eartec which allows us to talk back and forth while one is out of sight of the other. Also it makes docking easier because one of us can be aft and give verbal instructions about how far the dock is away from the boat..they are called marriage savers. They are great. We use a more robust headset than what is standard as they hold up better.

You can see our route to and from the Tides is a big loop. We have to go out and beyond Windmill Point which has a large shoal.

For us locals we cross the Robert Norris bridge by car quite frequently, known locally as the White Stone Bridge. It has been undergoing a multi-year rehab as you can see here. We see it so often from the road that it is fun to see it from the river side.

We liked this view going underneath the center span.

We caught the supply barge headed to the bridge with supplies and "relief potties". We think we caught one guy in action...so to speak!

After the shortest trip of our entire cruising year of 2.5 hrs we arrived and tied up along side the new floating docks and got settled in.

We dropped "One Wingy Dingy" for a little bit of creek exploring.

Of course got to clean up the boat before the fun begins. Most think this is tedious but I enjoy it. Especially if I listen to an audiobook on my Ipod. Makes the work quite enjoyable and of course you can only stop at the end of a chapter even if you are finished washing, I stretch it out to get the timing right.