With a laundry list of “things to do” David and I returned to Washington DC this week to…get them done! Good trip so far with medical check ups and short business meetings and wonderful opportunities to catch up with friends.

We left Mahdee on a mooring in the Fiddler’s Cove Marina. We have friends who will keep an eye on her but still…We are seldom away from Mahdee for even a day or two. We’ve been gone since 3 am Tuesday morning and already I’m worried–is everything good back on Mahdee? Is she behaving? Is she getting taken advantage of by the Osprey that often vacations aboard her tall mainmast when we visit Fiddler’s Cove? That durn osprey makes a mess. You’ve heard the phrase “its a dog-eat-dog world” but really, I’ll say it’s a bird-eat-bird world! When one of these birds of prey decides to visit us, we know that we’ll have bird-parts strewn about the deck (yuck!) from the osprey dinner party.

The logistics of getting from boat to airport for an early flight are interesting. We rowed in from the mooring at 3:30 am. Travel bags, a bag of trash, life vests, pump for the dingy–all the trappings of transport…The moon was still up, bright and lighting the calm winter night. It actually was a glorious row and if we hadn’t been on a time schedule, I would have enjoyed drifting about a bit in the small dingy enjoying the quiet night. After the row, we had to deflate the Tinker (since there’s no place to store the boat at the marina while we’re gone) and stash the dingy in back of the car. This is when I can be glad that we’re driving Wesley with the nice big hatchback. Transport the dingy up to the car in a dock cart, stash it and then change out of our clothes (now salty and damp from dealing with the Tinker) into decent travel clothing. From there, we drove to the airport where David dropped me and the luggage.

He then parked the car in our favorite free public parking lot on Shelter Island where our homeless friend, Chuck, keeps an eye on things while we’re gone. David had a 5:15 am date with a cab to bring him back to the airport on Harbor Island. It went very smoothly. We were soon on the 7 am Southwest Airlines flight to BWI. A rental car and 6 hours later we were in heaven: sitting in the home of close friends petting their four dogs, two cats and enjoying talking to our favorite teenager, Sarah, now 16, about sailing, gymnastics, and SAT exams (coming up on Saturday!).

The past two days have been productive and enjoyable. More on that later.