Day on the River, Chesapeake Bay

Its been a long wait. We finally went for a sail today. The boat has been ready for a long time, we were not.  In addition to cruising on the river, we had some jumpers. Our daughter was on the boat for the first time this year, and she requested to jump off and take a swim. It went well. She had company....We haven't done that in years. They cooled off, soaked down and reveled in being sucked down river by the tide...they loved it. We hooked up some lines to throw in the water so the swimmers had something to hold onto and it helped anchor the passengers in addition to the craft.  Without lines to hold onto, one would be washed to the Atlantic! Our canine passenger was interested in taking the plunge, but we were afraid we would not get her back on the boat, which could have been a big problem.   This is what we moved here for ...the water. Unfortunately what we seem to be doing here is only work, crushing, puzzling, frustrating work. This cruise was a treat.

Our reluctant observer, she'd rather swim

Splash from the jumpers taking to the water

Pelican in flight

The light was fantastic, absolutely beautiful. The spectacular cloud formations prodded me to photograph them for reference when creating future paintings. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of wonderful sights to photograph on this trip, though my little pocket camera was not the tool to capture the subjects. Large Brown Pelicans were sitting on the large fishing nets strung across the river. They sat there waiting to pounce on any opportunity for dinner which came their way. My pelican photos are pretty lame, I just could not get close enough to make the images I wanted. I include a silhouette of one flying by the boat.

   

Pup against those breathtaking cloud formations

The scenery we sailed past quieted the soul, with all its greens, blues, and waving reeds and grasses. We passed many Ospreys and Osprey platforms with baby Ospreys at various stages of maturity. Our first hatchling flew the nest today,we saw the same was happening at many other platforms along the river.The chick are near full size now, and are trying out their wings by flying straight up and down off of the nests. It is pretty entertaining to see, not to mention amazing. The resurgence of the Osprey here, compared to the population of my childhood, is impressive and formidable. We saw a bald eagle right around the point form our house and he was large clean and beautiful. Their population increases are also impressive.

Two Osprey babies in  nest on platform

We had a great cruise, I'll included a few photos here to take you out on the river. It is a surprisingly untouched native environment teeming with wildlife. I love it.