We pulled out of Higgins Yacht Center at St. Michael's, MD at11:25 am today, our 9th day of the Chesapeake Bay Loop (June 25, 2025). The temp was 87 degrees, and the wind was 4 knots, gusting 8 knots when we left St. Michael's. We cruised for 2 hours until we came to the Kent Narrows bridge, which has a clearance of 18 ft, and our boat is 19.5 ft. So, we had to hail the bridge tender on VHF channel 13 and ask him to open the drawbridge (our first time!). The drawbridge opens on the half hour, and we had just missed the top of the hour at 1:00 pm, so we had to wait until 1:30 pm for it to open again. We loitered in place for that half hour, and surprisingly a couple that we had met at Spring Cove Marina at Solomon's Island came up beside us in their boat and chatted with us. It is great that you can make new friends while boating and docking and then see them again at along the way, or at the same marina the next day or following days. Once the drawbridge opened, and we went through, we cruised for another 10 minutes while we were coming into Piney Narrows Yacht Haven marina, and we arrived at our slip at 1:40 pm. We docked next to Captain Dave. He was coming back to his boat with grocery bags while we were getting our lines tied, so I asked him if the grocery store was close and within walking distance because we were in need of a few things. He said no - that Safeway was about a mile and a half away and it was brutally hot, so he said that we could take his truck. He said that the truck was unlocked, and the keys were in it. We were blown away by the amazing act of kindness by someone we didn't know and who doesn't know us. We decided to do a couple loads of laundry at the marina before going to the grocery store. We decided to take Captain Dave up on his offer to borrow his truck because it was still stifling hot. We asked him what we could give him as payment, and he said, "a pack of AA batteries please, because my smoke detector just died". We are finding out that the boating community is the epitome of "helping your neighbor". We have seen so many acts of kindness and offers of help from people who don't want anything in return, just for you to "pass it forward". Tomorrow we're hopefully cruising to Rock Hall, MD.
