Moving on from Maryland, because summer is over

This week has been a bit of a roller coaster. Nothing really too bad, but certainly there have been some ups and downs.

We spent our last two days in St. Michael’s doing schoolwork in the morning and then going to shore in the evening to get the kids moving. One day, we scootered (and I ran) over to the elementary school and another evening we played tag at the playground. Tag is a more difficult game when you play with teenagers, especially those that have longer legs than you.

Saturday the wind finally settled down in the bay and we headed out for Solomons. It was an uneventful motor over to Solomons. Once there we tucked ourselves up in Mill Creek. It is a little tight for our 60 foot boat (when several other boats are there too) so it took us some time to find a spot that we were comfortable anchoring. Every once in a while tensions will still run high when anchoring because there are so many factors to consider when selecting your spot (how much and from where will the wind come in the next few days, where will your boat get blown to, how close you want to get to shore or other boats, are you in the main water way, how much rocking is there going to be, how much scope does your chain need etc.). It can be tiring after a day of traveling.

Back Creek has all the marinas and we had hoped to find a dinghy dock there to take a scooter ride around town and pick up some packages of water filters. However, all the dinghy docks in Back Creek have now been made for marina use only. In fact, the signs went up the night before for the last dinghy dock that was still used for the public and those at anchor. So, instead, Halyna and I dropped the rest of the family off and then proceeded to hang around the creek practicing our own dinghy driving skills until we could pick them up again (at another dinghy dock that was technically not one we were supposed to stop at). That night we were thinking about moving to another town where we could actually get to shore, but Kevin’s research finally discovered the only public dinghy dock in Solomons. It is tucked in behind the main street right next to a pump out station. I was surprised that nobody else seemed to dinghy dock to it, so I am not sure where everyone else was going.

We did some laundry and took our scooters to the grocery store the next day. Nothing too exciting. Monday, however, we rented a car so that we could drive to Baltimore again. When talking with some of our new cruising friends, we have been told that some states will require our check-out papers from the previous state before we check in. So, we had to get some from Maryland before moving on to Virigina later this week. However, we hadn’t even gotten feed back from our check-in to Maryland. When we arrived in Maryland, we called the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) check-in line and left a message. There was no answer after several attempts. We called them again when we moved to Annapolis, so we figured that if we left a message they would call us if they needed anything more from us. But then our friends informed us that they once had a bad experience because the CBP didn’t consider their check-in official (they had actually done one using the CBP app, which is correct). They recommended that we actually go into the office in person to make sure we were check-in and to check-out and get the papers since the phone line wasn’t getting us anywhere.

So, off we set Monday morning. We got to Baltimore just after lunchtime. It takes a while to dinghy to shore, Uber to the car rental place, drive back to the dinghy, dinghy to the boat and pick up the kids who were just getting dressed and then dinghy everyone back to the car and head out. We had looked up where to go on the CBP website the night before and headed for the office downtown. When we entered the building there was a security guard right at the door. He was surprised to see us and called the CBP office and they informed him to send Kevin their way. The kids and I hung out outside. Kevin came out 20 minutes later and I thought that meant he was done, but no, turns out they have no agents in the downtown office and they were just printing out direction for him to visit the office in the Baltimore-Washington International Airport, 25 minutes away. They mentioned that the office was in the basement of Terminal E. We arrived at the airport and found the basement office in Terminal E and saw the officer at the desk. He told us that this was not the correct location, but instead we needed to go to the commercial port and see an officer there. This was also 25 minutes away. We got back in the car and drove over to the address he gave us. On the way, we called the phone number he gave us and nobody answered. When we got there, it was gated. The man at the gate said that there was no CBP office behind the gates and we needed military clearance to pass through the gates. He gave us two more numbers to try and both of them had no answers! So we figured, perhaps we were supposed to be at the Cruise terminal port becase that is where the CBP have been in other cities. We drove the 20 minutes now in rush hour to the Cruise terminal and it was closed. So, defeated we drove back to the boat. What were we to do! This was the night before Halloween, the kids wanted to buy pumpkins to carve and we hadn’t had lunch and the kids had missed a day of schoolwork. We were not very happy.

We revived ourselves with lunch/dinner at a mexican restaurant, before heading out on a quest to find pumpkins. Apparently, they move on from Halloween to Christmas the day before Halloween here in Maryland. Every single store we went in, were putting up their Christmas displays and had moved their Halloween displays to a single aisle off in the back corner. To make matters worse, they had no more pumpkins. After six different stores, we found a bin of 15 or so small pumpkins (half white and half orange) in a Home Depot in Annapolis. We bought 6 and drove home. Our day ended with a bowl of soup at 9pm for ‘lunch after dinner’ (as Simon liked to say). We went to bed hoping for a better day on Halloween. I should also say, that during the coarse of the day the temperature went from 26oC in the morning to 10oC at night (with rain) and we had to dinghy back to our boat in our shorts! It was freezing!

We woke the next morning and immediately called the CBP office in Virgina. Maybe they would be willing to have us arrive without check-out papers? Especially after putting in so much effort the day before? But no, they were stumped as to why we had so much trouble but insisted that we couldn’t arrive in Virgina without check-out papers from Maryland. They even called the phone numbers we did and got no answers. They looked up the addresses and had the same ones we did. They weren’t sure why it wasn’t working in Maryland.

So, we got the kids up and dinghied back to the car for one more attempt at getting our Maryland check-out papers. We decided we would try the airport again. When we had been given directions there by the people downtown, they had said Terminal E but had a paper directing us to a separate building, F, next to the airport. We thought we would try this building first. The funny thing was, the address on this paper was completely wrong. When we followed the direction we ended up at a different address than that written on the paper, and the one on the paper actually doesn’t exist!

On route we picked up the husband off our friends boat. They similarly had to get their check out papers before sailing/moving into Virigina and were following our fiasco. We arrived at the location as directed by the paper and found that the unit was vacant. When we asked the other Fish and Wildlife Office on the mainfloor if they knew where the CBP office had moved, they said they did and that it was now in Terminal E at the airport! Furthermore, they had been asked this so many times, that they had a sheet with instructions on how to get to that office from their office. So, we weren’t the first to be put in this position.

We headed back to the office in the airport and approached the same officer/agent we had seen the day before. He said the same thing, that he couldn’t help us even though he was a CBP agent and that we had to go to the port. When we pointed out that he had sent us on a wild goose chase the day before, he didn’t have any other suggestions for us. As per our istruction from the Virgina CBP, we asked to speak with his supervisor. She happily saw us and informed us that yes, they couldn’t process us there, but we could be processed at the cruise terminal (the one we had visited on our own the day before that was closed). She said that they would looked closed but we had to call them and they would come and get us at the gates. She gave us another number to call. She promised us she ‘wouldn’t stear us wrong’ this time. We called the number she gave us and finally somebody answered on the other end. Low and behold, they were exactly the people to help us and arranged to meet us at the gates of the cruise terminal!

When we arrived at the cruise terminal, a very nice officer met us at the gates and guided us to their office. He took the information from both our boats and properly set us up to move on to Virigina. He even issued us new cruising permits! He was so pleasant, efficient, and helpful. It was such a tramendous relief to finally have somebody help us out. We went out for a burger lunch right after to celebrate.

Now that we were set with the CBP, it was time to move onto Halloween festivities. We drove the 2 hours back to Solomons just in time for trick-or-treating. The kids had brought their costumes with us during the drive in case we ran out of time. After a quick change in the back seat, we got out and joined the throngs (and boy were there crowds in Solomons!) on the streets collecting candy. Norah, Simon and Halyna went door-to-door, while Kevin, Owen and I wandered along behind them. Kevin is still limping along with his damaged toe (although it is very slowly getting better). The quaint town was transformed into a row of ‘haunted houses’ speckled with front yard fire pits somewhat reminiscent of summer block parties I am sure are held here in the warmer months. The kids had a lot of fun. We finished the evening by picking up a couple pizzas and bringing them back to the boat. It had been along day but much more gratifying than the one before it.

Temperatures continued to drop the next day and we spent almost all of it on the boat (other than a quick trip to shore to return the rental car). The kids had schoolwork to catch up on and candy to sort. We also finally carved our pumpkins. One day late, but we think the other boats in the anchorage probably still apprecate the lit up jack-o-lanterns on our back steps. We even roasted one of the pumpkins seeds. Kevin and Owen didn’t carve their pumpkins, so I am thinking I might turn them into some muffins and pumpkin loaf.

Today we left Solomons. It feels like the start of our final leg heading south through the US. We hope to visit Norfolk before heading around Cape Hatteras and on to Charleston. There, we are actually going to put our boat in a marina for a month, while we head home to visit family and friends and maybe even do a little work (boat repairs are expensive!). I look forward to this leg of our journey, especially as it draws us closer to the Bahamas and warmer weather.