Summer 2024 – Adventures in the Dirt Yacht

May 16, 2024August 14, 2024

Tired of the Wind – 5/16/2024

I should be used to the wet and windy weather by now because that is all it seemed to do when we were in Florida this year, but the weather must have followed us because it seems like the wind has blown almost every day since we got to Chincoteague. We have only gone fishing one day because of the wind, but we have been productive with getting our site set up and have enjoyed exploring Chincoteague and Assateauge in spite of the weather.

We have done the Wildlife Drive on Assateague a couple of times. Have not spotted any of the ponies close up, but did see a muskrat, white tail deer, a racoon and lots of birds. We did not realize that changes in fencing on Assateague probably restricts where the ponies can roam, so we will not see any on the Wildlife drive. There were a lot of geese on Assateague as well as in the campground, so I have been working on trying to keep Skip from barking at them. He does not listen to me very well so not very successful. We have spotted a fox that must live in the protected marsh land in the campground, because we have seen him several times–mostly early in the morning or during one of Skips late night walks. We have been to the beach but only for a quick look. That wind whipping off the ocean was too cold for me.

Most of our time in the two weeks since we arrived has been spent getting the Dirt Yacht set up. Randy raked the lawn and spread grass seed and straw. Right now, the small lawn section is just patches of grass so hopefully the seed will germinate. We did not realize the bag of seed was out of date so not sure how much grass we will actually get. Especially with all of the little birds eating the seed.

One thing we are looking forward to is putting up a fence for Skip. I have it ordered but it is not scheduled for delivery until sometime between May 23 to the end of the month. It has not even shipped yet, so I doubt it will come any earlier. We have made several trips to Pocomoke City, Berlin and even Ocean City to pick up supplies, etc. The one day we did get out to go fishing the starting battery had to be jumped so we knew we needed a new one. The only AGM Group 24 battery we could find either on-line or in a store was from the West Marine in Ocean City so we picked one up so we did not have to worry the next time we get out on the boat. Since we were in OC we headed out to the inlet and got some Thrashers French Fries. They are still as good as ever!

As much as I love the food in Florida, it just does not compete with the seafood in this area. Since it has been so windy and we have not been out on the boat, we have had time for several dinners out at some of the local restaurants for Chincoteague Oysters and some type of crab. Our dinners out have been great. So far Captain Zack’s has been our favorite, but the Wednesday night special of half price appetizers at Steamers was really good too! We have even had a couple of sundaes from island Creamery. We stopped at Ray’s Shanty this afternoon on our way back from Pocomoke City and I picked up some jumbo lump crab meat and a couple of pounds of shrimp. We will have some good dinners the next couple of days.

It was great that Ryan could visit for the weekend. We had a late birthday celebration for Ryan. Ryan and Randy enjoyed the delicious Bloody Mary’s at Captain Zack’s. They were so good I had one too!

Cream of Crab soup at Captain Zack’s. Delicious. Randy got the Blue Crab Chili which I thought was better.

Delicious, but small, Chincoteague Salts.

The Oyster’s Rockefeller at Captain Zack’s were good but the boys thought they had too much spinach. Guess they don’t like their greens.

The soft crabs were delicious at Captain Zack’s but I was so full from the shared appetizers, I had to take one of the soft crabs home for lunch the next day.

View of the cottages at Sun Outdoors while out on the boat exploring.

Fishing the channel in front of the campground

When we stayed at Tom’s Cove, it was a long boat ride to Queen Sound but it is a short ride from Sun Outdoors. No luck fishing though!

Muskrat in the freshwater impoundment on the Wildlife Drive on Assateague.

Randy needed a new battery for Sweet Thing. The closest one available was in West Marine in Ocean City. We took a quick side trip out to the inlet in Ocean City Maryland

The beach at the inlet in Ocean City, Maryland

Ocean City is getting ready for the Cruisin’ weekend by setting up space for vendors in the inlet parking lot.

The main reason we drove out to the Inlet in Ocean City was so Randy could get some Thrasher’s French Fries!

Randy was in the mood for some clam chowder so we thought we would go to Steamer’s for dinner. Did not realize that Wednesday is their half price off appetizers night.

Randy said the Bloody Mary was just OK at Steamers. Good thing we thoroughly enjoyed the dinner.

Appetizers at Steamers included steamed and raw oysters, Chicken nuggets; In addition to the appetizers that we shared we also go Cream of Crab soup and fried oysters. Will need to remember this for another Wednesday night.

Another sundae from Island Creamery. Learned my lesson and only ordered a single dip hot-fudge sundae. But I was still stuffed!

May 15, 2024May 15, 2024

Change – 05/13/2024

Other than a few quick visits, we have not spent much time in Chincoteague, Virginia, since my mom decided to sell the camper at Tom’s Cove Campground after my dad died in 1999. It was heartbreaking that we decided not to buy the site from her, but we only made the trip a couple of times the prior year because the kids had so many activities. We just did not have the time to enjoy all that Chincoteague had to offer. Life changed drastically for us when we no longer had J48 at Tom’s Cove.

At the time we had several smaller boats, including my dad’s 20′ Mako, so we sold everything and bought a larger boat that we kept at Podickory Point Yacht and Beach Club. An hour drive to the boat near the Bay Bridge was much easier to make for a weekend, or even a day, instead of the four and a half hour drive to Chincoteague. Boating instead of camping took most of our free time for quite a few years; especially when we upgraded to Liberty, our 41′ Silverton. It wasn’t until we decided to buy The Dirt Yacht to use once we retired that life changed again. With my hearing loss and cochlear implant surgery, vertigo made any long-term boating impossible for me. While i can still enjoy short fishing or boating trips, I can no longer spend hours or days on a boat.

When Kat bought her Tiffin Motorhome last year, she asked us to go on a shake down run with her to make sure she was comfortable handling her new-to-her motorhome. She asked to go to Chincoteague. I was reluctant because it was supposed to be a cool, wet weekend, but I am glad we decided to go. Tom’s Cove has not changed at all, except the campers have gotten older. J48 is still there, but it looks nothing like we remember. Our old travel trailer and the room Randy built onto it are no longer there. Its one of the few that have been upgraded. The town itself still has most of the older homes we remember, but there are more new stilt homes along Main Street. Randy’s favorite “little pink house” is gone! The most notable change we just happened to notice while driving around is that Inlet View Campground was leveled to make room for Sun Outdoors – Chincoteague Bay. Captain Bob’s Marina is now BluFin Bungalows & Marina. And these new businesses look nothing like the originals. No more falling down campers and old docks. We were excited when we found that Sun Outdoors was brand new and still had seasonal sites available for the 2024 season. We again made some drastic changes and cancelled our trip West with Fantasy RV Tours and booked the summer at Sun Outdoors and a seasonal boat slip at BluFin.

Checking in at Sun Outdoors – Chincoteague Bay

BluFin Marina where we have a seasonal boat slip reserved. Hopefully they will get their permit to open soon.

May 11, 2024May 16, 2024

Summer 2024 – 5/11/2024

I have not been posting anything in my blog for quite a while, but now that we are going to somewhere new for the summer of 2024, I have started posting again. Maybe not so much new, as a return to the old. We left the Keys at the end of April to head to Chincoteague, Virginia, where I spent many fun days with my parents and later with Randy when our kids were younger.

This year’s trip North was one of the easiest trips we have encountered. We left on a Sunday with very little traffic, especially around Miami. We stopped at Sunshine Travel RV Park outside Vero Beach which is where we typically stop for our first night. The next day was another easy day of traffic with only one small traffic backup. We again stopped at our normal stopover at South of the Border. We had more traffic through North Carolina the next day, buy still not bad so we made good time to get to Ryan’s for the night. We arrived in time for Randy to help Ryan install a new dishwasher to replace his old one that had died the day before. We still had plenty of time to get to Smithfield Station for dinner. Since we were only staying one night at Ryan’s we knew that Station was where we wanted to go. Randy and Ryan both enjoyed a Station Bloody Mary. We shared a plate of Oysters Rockefeller and Randy and I shared our dinners. I had fried oysters, Calabash Style, and Randy had a seafood platter. Since the platter does not come with oysters, I shared some of mine with him, and he shared his flounder, crab cake and shrimp with me. It was delicious as always!

The next day we had a short drive to Sun Outdoors at Chincoteague Bay. The only part of the trip I dreaded was the 20+ minute drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Fortunately the traffic was light so the drive across was easy and not as bad as I feared. I did not particularly like towing the utility trailer with the golf cart through the 2 tunnels, but I did not have any problems. Again, the traffic was light so only passed a few semi trucks that caused me a little bit of anxiety.

We had been told prior to arriving that there was a problem with BluFin’s occupancy permit so our boat slip that we had rented for the season would not be available. We were fortunate that we could get a slip for the month of May at the city owned dockage at Curtis Merritt Harbor that is next door to Sun Outdoors. We got a partial refund from BluFin which paid for most of the monthly rental. We were told today the permit has probably been approved and our slip should be ready to use shortly. I am not sure which one will be the nicer slip, but the city dock slip is not available for the rest of the year. We were able to get gas for the boat but the wind picked up so we decided not to go fishing. We did take a quick ride down to BluFin just to look at their entrance from the water. Looks a lot like it did when the marina was Capt. Bob’s. Just 2 bubba stakes outlining the narrow channel. Hopefully it was dredged so we can get in once it opens.

We have gotten most everything set up for the season except for the fence we ordered for Skip. He will like having an area to get outside without being restricted on the leash. It is scheduled to arrive in about 2 weeks. We had one concern that the Airstream that backs up to us was over the property line by several feet. Katerina, the resort manager, talked to the renter today and they told us they will move their RV forward a few feet so we can put our fence along the back line without them being in the way. Now that we have gotten permission for packages to be delivered here at Sun Outdoors hopefully there we not be any problems with shipping. The local Pack N Ship company closed about 10 days ago so the only other option for getting mail is a P O Box at the Post Office. However, they do not have any way to receive packages delivered by UPS or other carriers after they are closed for the day/weekend. Small packages that are shipped USPS are just kept in a storage box or our mail box at the Post Office, until we can pick them up, but they will not accept larger packages. We found this out when Skips canned dog food was returned as undeliverable. Even though Sun Outdoors says they will not accept packages, they have been very gracious about accepting them since there is really no other option. Katerina did warn us that we would have to take any return packages to Pocomoke City or Berlin for pickup. Hopefully someone else will re-open the local packaging shop.

I am looking forward to the weather improving so we can get out to do some exploring on Assateague and hopefully some flounder fishing. It is a big adjustment to the cooler temperatures here in Chincoteague . And the fog has been heavy at times. We are definitely not in the Keys anymore! We did find time to make one quick trip to Assateague but it was very windy so not a good day to explore the island. On our way back from Assateague, we made a stop at Island Creamery for 2 small sundaes. They were great but I miss their Fruit & Fudge sundaes. I will have to see if I can get them to make me one! Skip had a terrible flare of his inflammatory bowel disease during our move so hopefully staying stationary for a while will help him. Stress is a big trigger for him so all of the moving around did not help his condition. He seems to finally be stable and eating consistently again. Now if I can just get him to sleep overnight without having to go outside, we can enjoy our time here! Ryan is coming to visit tonight so maybe Skip can sleep with him.