On The Blocks at PWM…

The M/V “Our Pleasure” on blocks at Prince William Marina

Every two years we have to have our boat, M/V “Our Pleasure”, pulled from the waters of the Potomac and blocked at Prince William Marina for maintenance. Well this was the year and along with the usual cleaning and bottom paint she also need a good compounding and waxing and all the zincs replaced this time around. While she was high and dry, I also had the fiberglass guy stop by and fix a large crack in the swim platform from where we got blown into a piling during a bad storm two years ago. Oh yea, there’s always something to fix with a boat… after all, that’s what BOAT stands for you know… “Break Out Another Thousand”!!

The guys at PWM are great and along with the outstanding service and high quality of workmanship, I even got a little break on the price for being such a good customer (what ever that means). Regardless of cost, boat maintenance is a necessary evil and with out it… well lets just say that a boat won’t last long if not properly maintained. So after a little more than a week of being out of the water and up on blocks, it looks like “Our Pleasure” is again ready for another fun filled boating season on the Potomac! Enjoy the photos and check out that wax job…!!!
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The Memorial Day Weekend..

Me and my brother Mike on the back of  M/V “Our Pleasure” @ Belmont Bay

The thing I like most about the Memorial Day weekend is that it signifies the start of Summer. This is also one of the best weekends for boating in my opinion. Face it, after a long winter everyone has the itch to hit the water for the long three day weekend… and this year the weather was most cooperative! Here are a few photos from the weekend events on the water at Belmont Bay… Enjoy!
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The 2009 Boating Season…

I’ve taken the time to put together a small collection of photos that Julie and I took during this past summer. Most of these photos never made the normal journal posts because they were on our small camera (the one Julie uses) which doesn’t get downloaded very often. After cleaning out our little camera for the up coming holidays, I realized that I really hadn’t posted a whole lot of photos from the boating season. I normally try to post at least two boating photo stories a month during the summer, but this past summer was so busy I just didn’t have the time. So, as a tribute to this past summer, and the fun and sun that it gave us, here are some pictures to keep us warm over the winter…. Enjoy!!
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The Harvest Moon…

This past Sunday on the cruise back from dinner at the Fort Washington Marina, we noticed the moon rising behind us and had to stop the boat to try to capture it. It was the harvest moon and even though the full phase of the moon was the night before (I think?), it was still a spectacular site… especially from the water! For shooting free hand from the back of a rocking boat, I’d say the photos turned out pretty good, but I really wish I’d been on a stable platform with a tripod… then they would have been awesome!
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The ‘Girls Day’ Boating Excursion…

Julie asked me some time ago, if I could make myself available to take her and some of her girlfriends out on our boat before the end of the summer. So after much planning, we decided to put together a boating day for the girls this past Saturday…. and it turned out to be a fabulous day with nothing but blue skies and sunshine! We started the day with a quick cruise out to the channel between Occoquan and Mattawoman Creek and then back to Occoquan Bay where we stopped long enough to take some pictures of the Rock Island Wreck (a very popular attraction lately!)

Then it was on to Belmont Bay where we found a nice shallow spot just off the beach to drop anchor and spend the rest of the afternoon. I admit I might have gone a little over-board with all the food (grilled shrimp, steak and veggie kabobs) but hey, it was Julies idea and from the looks on their faces I would say her friends totally enjoyed it! Anyway, it was a truly enjoyable day for all and as I said back at the dock, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again in a second… just give me a heads up!

I’ve added some photos from the day to my journal gallery… just click the link below. For those of you who where there, I will send out an email soon with the URL where you can download the full sized image files for making prints.
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The Rock Island Wreck…

This past Sunday, after anchoring and rafting up with friends at Belmont Bay, I learned that there had been a mishap on the river the night before. This is all second hand information, but it seems that a couple of fellows in a small Wellcraft power boat ended up launching their boat onto Rock Island just South of the Occoquan River Inlet. At first I was under the impression that they had just run aground on the rocks when they got too close to the island, but my friends assured me that was not the case.

After hearing the story of how the entire boat was up on the island… well I had to go see it for myself. So on our way back to the marina we took a detour out to the island and sure enough, the boat looked like it had been set atop the island with a crane! This was a way funny site, but I do hope the two people in the boat were okay. Hitting a land mass like this at speed could kill someone!! Maybe it’s time to put up a navigational marker light… you think!?
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July 4th Fireworks in DC!

Well here we are… another year, another July 4Th and yes another boating trip up to Washington DC for the best Independence Day Fireworks show in the country (or so I’ve been told.) This year will mark the second anniversary of our new boat, so we where truly excited to be able to spend the entire weekend out on the water as we did last year. Saturday started out with the usual meeting of friends out at Belmont Bay for the pre-trip festivities and then around 4:30 we pulled the anchor and started the hour long cruise up to DC. Our goal… find a good spot to anchor for dinner and then relax & enjoy the show.

Charlie & Nichole were the first from our little group to make it under the 14Th street bridge and almost right away found an open spot in nearly the same location as we anchored last year. Just up river from the tidal basin with a great view of both the Washington Monument and the Fireworks show… who could ask for more! After getting everyone tied up and settled in for the show (and the evening) we broke out the grills for some shrimp, steak and veggie kabobs and then kicked back for one of most relaxing and pleasant evening on the Potomac River we’ve had in a very long time!
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A Frozen Belmont Bay Marina

The Washington DC metro area has fallen under a nasty weather system that promises to leave it’s mark on anything that has contact with water and the elements. That’s right, we’re in the grips of a bad freeze! For the last few days I’ve heard stories of burst water pipes and flooded basements, but what really caught my attention was when I heard someone say that the Potomac River had frozen. Granted the ice isn’t thick enough to walk across, but it’s still been quite a long time since we’ve had this sever of a freeze.

All this said, I decided that it might be a good idea to run down to the marina where we keep our boat and have a look at the present situation. We had our boat completely winterized last December, but because it stays in the water year round we still have to worry about big freezes like this one! After checking and confirming that the cabin heater and underwater slip deicer were working properly I decided to snap off some photos of the marina for my journal. Click the link below to see all the photos… Enjoy!

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A Perfect Day at Belmont Bay!

The weekend weather in the DC area has been totally unpredictable over the past couple of months. It seems that these freak severe thunderstorms with extremely high winds have become the norm for Sunday boating. On several occasion now, myself and others have been caught up in some very nasty conditions while out on the Potomac. On one such Sunday we had to batten down and ride out a bad storm for almost two hours while anchored… Not Fun!

So, when you do finally get a good storm-free weekend you really have to enjoy it!! Here are some pictures from a Sunday afternoon two weekends ago out on the backside of Belmont Bay. As you can see… everyone was enjoying the weather for a change!!
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Aquapalooza 2008…!

This past weekend Julie and I took the boat down to Fairview Beach for Aquapalooza 2008. The ride down was uneventful and took us just over an hour even with a pretty good head wind. Once there we realized right away why this event is called the biggest water party in the world. There were boats and people as far as the eye could see… it was truly unbelievable! There was a floating barge just off the beach which was used as a 2 story performance platform for the 7 different bands that played the event.

Oh yeah… you would think that being a big boating event they would have played some Jimmy Buffett or something right!? Wrong… the music was all country which really kind of sucked. I don’t mind country music, but it’s normally associated with rednecks… I’ll let you drawl your own conclusions!

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