Canadians take the Capital by storm! Again!

When we arrived in Washington, we'd just finished three long days on the water working our way down the Chesapeake and up the Potomac. Compared to our recent adventures this passage was uneventful. We fell ten or so miles short of the Potomac the first day so we dropped the hook in a little bay for the night just down river from the Solomon Islands. According to the waterway guide we're using, there should have been fighter jets flying in and out of the nearby air force base, but all we caught a glimpse of was a heavy transport coming in just before dusk. I wanted to cover as much ground as possible the next day, so I left Henry to his own accord and hit the sack early.

It was another bright sunny day that greeted me that morning, I threw the kettle on, changed out of my pajamas, pulled the hook and got underway by around seven. It took us two hours to get to the Potomac, so the tide was with us when we arrived. We made good time for the first half of the day doing seven knots at 1800 RPM. It wasn't until early afternoon that the tide slacked and the current began to slow our progress. We made it 35 miles up the river before calling it quits for the day. Most of the anchorages listed for this area required a 4-6 mile trek up a river or a creek, the last thing I wanted to do was add another hour at the end of the day and another hour the next morning so we decided to venture off the beaten track and nestled into a little bay on the leeward shore amongst a large field of crab pots.

We were in 12 feet of water so we carefully chose our spot and dropped the least amount of chain we could to keep us clear of the pods. Henry was desperate to go for a swim so he put on his swimmies and made his way to the swim ladder, he made it in as far as his toes, but the cool breeze off the water had taken the warmth out of the air and the wind out of his sails so he retreated to his bedroom and his pajamas before joining me for a movie and some dinner.

I was up before the sun the following day. I didn't want the crab pot owners screaming at me first thing in the morning, so I set my alarm for 5:30 am. I made my tea and sat in the cockpit waiting for just enough light to see the markers for the crab pots, the moment I had enough to navigate I pulled the hook and threaded my way through the field of bobbers.

Unlike the Hudson, the Potomac isn't very deep, and the banks shallow quickly towards the river's edge. As the day wore on the navigation continued to require more and more attention, so we could only use the autopilot for brief intervals between the channel markers as we snaked our way up the river. The river began to narrow roughly 46 miles north of the Chesapeake. There's that word again "north", It's not the most efficient way to get to the Bahamas but the nation's capital struck me as a good reason for a detour, and although we're desperately seeking some fun in the sun it's not just about the destination, it's about the journey.

Once we passed under the Harry W. Nice bridge, we were limited in places to drop the hook for the night. All the bays and coves from this point on, were too shallow for Island Eclipse so we were at the go, no-go point in our final push towards the capital. If we made it to Quantico, 25 miles south of Washington by 2:00pm and we could maintain our speed of seven knots we'd make it all the way to the anchorage in the Washington Channel shortly before sunset. We passed by George Washington's home and Mount Vernan, the President's retreat in the final legs of our trip.

The closer we got to Washington the stronger and quicker the current became, I'd throttled up to 2100 rpms a short while back as I methodically counted down the miles and minutes desperate to make our destination before dark. Henry was all conversation at this point talking a mile a minute about everything and anything, but I was too distracted with what was to come. Fortunately, we made the last bridge before dark, but it was still four or five miles to the channel. I'd called ahead to the Washington Marine Unit to secure a spot in the anchorage as required, so when we arrived, I had a basic idea of what to expect. We'd been told to anchor between the yellow marks on the north side of the channel just before the first pier. By the time we got to the channel it was quite dark making the yellow cans difficult to locate, so we reached out to the marine unit once again for some assistance. They happily guided us back to the anchorage where we finally found the yellow buoys happily bobbing up and down about six inches off the waterline. They might have been easier to locate if other boats had been on the hook, but again it was just us.

After being on the water behind the helm for some 14 hours I was good to just have some dinner and relax. Washington and all the adventures there would have to wait until the next day.

The next morning, we got off to a slow start, we didn't drop the dinghy in the water until noonish before slowly loading the bikes aboard. We checked our dinghy in at the marina, and for $10 a day we had the run of the place, laundry, Wi-Fi, and showers. Once we'd gotten the formalities out of the way we made our way to the nearest bus headed in the direction of the closest bike shop. We needed to pick up a replacement innertube for my bike.

Live aboard community, 100+ boats

We'd never used the bike racks on a bus before, so the driver lowered the bus and came out to show us how to use them. He was very friendly, accommodating and patient, a stark contrast to our experience in Annapolis. We got talking to a friendly passenger on the ride who offered to guide us to the bike shop as it was on her way home. She had moved to Washington from San Francisco for work, she was a party organizer for Barack Obama during his run for President and wanted to be a part of the historic event, she loved the city so much she made the move permanent.

Throughout our visit to the Capital almost everyone we talked to spoke very highly of the city, a lot of people were born and raised in or around the DC area, and the rest all made it their home after visiting the city for one reason or another.

When we arrived at the bike shop, they had a tube but their installation charge was cost prohibitive so we took the tube and headed home. On our walk back to the bus we happened upon a farmers’ market and bazaar, it had such a great vibe with a jazz band at each entrance playing music as people shopped or enjoyed a coffee. It had a real sense of community. Unfortunately, we took the wrong bus back to the marina so it dropped us off well short of our destination, but.... fortunately for us it let us off next to a fire station with the doors wide open and firemen looking in need of something to do. I introduced myself to the firemen and explained our innertube dilemma, moments later out came the tools and away we went. It only took us five minutes to switch out the tubes, but that was all we could do, the compressor hose was missing the valve, so we'd have to keep walking. Washington is a big bicycle town with numerous bike-share and bike rental companies, so on the walk back we made our way to an outdoor bike repair station to pump up the tire. It seemed that riding the bikes wasn't in the cards for today as the pump at the repair station was broken, so we continued our walk. About ten minutes from the marina, we happened upon a bike rental company happy to lend us their pump.

Now that we had wheels again, we could skip dinghying back to the boat and get right to exploring. First, we made our way to the Congress buildings, then we biked through the National Mall, past the WWII war memorial to the Washington Monument. It was well past sunset at this point, so we concluded our exploring for the day and sought out the nearest Chipotle for dinner. We were bagged by the time we got home so we had some desert over a show and hit the sack.

By Monday it was time for laundry and showers before we ventured out into the city. The Marina was well equipped and beautiful, with a lounge area for the boaters with a large screen TV and a kitchen, the laundry had three big commercial washers and dryers. Once we and the laundry were both clean, we dropped it in the dinghy and headed to the grocery store to stock up for the week. We spent the remainder of the day relaxing on the Potomac.

Tuesday the adventure really began, we booked our tickets for the Smithsonian Aerospace Museum for noon and made our way there by bus. There was a short line up when we arrived, but we were soon in the building and exploring all the museum had to offer. We got to see Wilbur and Orville Wright's original airplane they flew at Kitty Hawk December 17, 1903, Alan Sheppard’s Freedom 7, Apollo 11 the first mission to land on the moon, and many other historical artifacts pristinely maintained. It was a very surreal experience to stand next to history, to see these monumental and pivotal contraptions of history. There was lots of reading to do at each exhibit, so being a slow reader, I spent most of the day by myself as Henry zoomed through the building speed reading everything he explored.

We finished at the Smithsonian around 3:30pm, so we decided to take in the Natural History Museum on the way home.

The Natural History Museum had a totally different vibe than the Aerospace Museum. The Aerospace Museum was all about man's accomplishments, our successes and our failures, the Natural History Museum was all about evolution, death, rebirth, and man's negative influence on our planet. The exhibits were fantastic, and the building was awesome, but the underlying harshness of life and death was a bit of a buzz kill. We only spent two or three hours inside before calling it a day. It was dark by the time we got back to the boat, so we rustled up some grub, watched a show and hit the pillows.

Wednesday was part exploration and part scavenge. We took the subway to the Pentagon on our way to the local Costco, while passing through the Pentagon we stopped at the September 11 memorial for the 184 people lost in the attack. 184 benches representing each life lost, sit in a park-like setting under trees, close to the site where the airplane struck the building. Each bench is personalized with the individual names of each victim. It was a powerful memorial with flowers, mementos and children’s toys left on some of the benches. The youngest life lost that day was 3-year-old Dana Falkenberg. Dana, her sister Zoe and both her parents were aboard flight 77 when it was hijacked on September 11, 2001, and flown into the Pentagon.

After taking in the memorial, we continued our way to Costco where we ate pizza, and ice cream sundaes. We packed the cart with everything we'd need, from paper towels and batteries to maple syrup and Eggos. I took my first Uber that day back to the marina, the Washington DC native tasked to deliver us and our spoils were again, very friendly, and helpful. We transported all our supplies back to Island Eclipse and began making plans for our next day's adventure.

This time our exploration would take us off the beaten track, most of the museums and such are in the heart of Washington except for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum located at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly Virginia. Fortunately getting there was quite easy, we took the Green Line subway some 40 or so miles from Washington DC to Chantilly Virginia, where we caught a shuttle bus right to the facility.

Upon arrival you quickly understood why this museum stood alone, it was a massive complex with an airfield and a massive hangar to house the ultimate air and space collection. From rockets to balloons this museum had it all. We got up close and personal with the space shuttle Discovery, the second shuttle of our trip. The Enola Gay, the first airplane to drop a Nuclear Bomb during war, an SR 71 Blackbird, the capsule Flix Baumgartner jumped from to become the world's highest free fall parachutist, a tiny portion of the aluminum fabric that covered the Hindenburg and many other significant historical aircrafts and equipment from a time gone by. It was phenomenal to see and be a part of.

Unlike our previous museums we closed this one taking in as much as we could until the very last minute when they finally kicked us out. It took an hour or so to get back to Washington where we decided to take in a movie at the theater before calling it a day.

Our trip to Washington would have to come to an end shortly if we were going to make it south so we decided on the Holocaust Museum, the African American History Museum, and the art gallery to conclude our trip.

The Holocaust Museum was, of course, very moving and disturbing. When you arrive, they give you a small four-page book narrating a short period in the life of a Jewish person who endured the ordeal. You are instructed to read one page per floor as you pass through the exhibit, learning their fate on the last floor. Fortunately for both Heny and I, the subjects of our booklets both survived the war, emigrating to the US soon after peace broke out. The booklets really connect you with the exhibit, they reveal small moments of personal tragedy as the history andevents unfold around you. The Holocaust Museum was the only museum where we didn't take pictures, it didn't feel appropriate, and a picture just wouldn't be enough to tell this terrible story… We took the rest of the day off, the subject matter was pretty heavy, and left us emotionally affected.

Our last day at the museums took us to the art gallery where we saw many paintings by the greats Kandinsky, Da Vinci, Picasso, Warhol, and others. The Art gallery itself is massive, the collection fills multiple huge buildings almost as grand as the works they hold. We lasted three or so hours before we'd had enough, and as beautiful as the art was it still got a little boring towards the end. I did, however, snap some shots to illustrate why we have very little art displayed on Island Eclipse, the first pictures are ones Deb would love, landscapes, beaches, and oceans. I, on the other hand, prefer abstract art, our compromise was to display only the pictures that we take or create…

We left the art gallery with our eyes set on the African American History Museum, our last stop on this portion of our adventure. The building was grand, and probably the busiest of all the museums we'd visited. The exhibits highlighted the achievements of African Americans as well as their struggles, and although the museum could have focused on the persecution, segregation, and exploitation of African Americans it didn't. It explored their perseverance and successes throughout history, from sports, to science and the arts. There were of course moments throughout the exhibit that I was truly embarrassed to be white, the treatment of African Americans from segregation to police violence way, and is, absolutely appalling. One can only hope that people move past such indifference and embrace each other as humans, brothers, and sisters under the stars.

And with that it was almost over, one last bike ride through the capital to pick up some last-minute supplies and of course a visit to the White House concluded our trip. Before leaving the next day, I scored a ride to a not so nearby propane station to top up our tanks in preparation for the colder nights ahead. When I got back to the boat, I unloaded the tanks and pulled the dinghy out of the water. We got underway around noon, making our anchorage just south of Quantico shortly before dark. #