Waterman's Lunch Run

It was so nice today we just had to fly!

Mary and I decided we would head to Ocean City Maryland to have lunch at the newly rebuilt Waterman's Seafood Company. In October of 2012 Waterman's was wiped out by fire. We watched them rebuild all last summer and we were looking forward to them reopening. We were not disappointed.

C&D Canal looking west to the Chesapeake Bay

We headed to the plane around 10ish and had to chip away the ice to break the doors free. I'm going to find some sort of melting agent, maybe the dog friendly stuff, that I can pour along the door tracks. Once 08Romeo was finally free I tugged her out and got started. A couple of blades and she was purring along ready to have some fun in the cold air. 

The tip of Cape Henlopen, middle frame just to the right.

I climbed out to one thousand and turned south direct for KOXB.  We rode along at three thousand monitoring Wilmington's tower then Dover approach. There was some pattern traffic at Ocean city so I worked my way in and made a nice landing.

Delaware Bay

The airport buggy was ready to go today, now that the solar charger was secured facing the sun.  Last week we found it hanging alongside the car backside out to the sun.  It didn't charge very well in that position.  The leather seats were cold but the little thing has seat heaters and they work!

Waterman's is a very short hop from the airport so we made it just past our planned noon lunch that I posted for others to try and attend.  No shows, so it was just me and my Bride.  Mary enjoyed the crab cake sandwich, which she said was very good but thought Woody's in Dewey Beach was better.  I had the shrimp salad and it was very good.

Since we were in the area we contacted our realtor and road though Ocean Pines looking at homes. The market looks thin right now but we hope more homes will be listed by Spring.  We are still trying to sell a two bed/two bath condo here in north Wilmington so we know how it goes.

heading home  looking west south west towards the Chesapeake bay, much more haze now

We headed back top 08Romeo for the trip home and said our goodbyes to the folks working the desk. I order fuel to the slots, that makes twenty a side for our trip home. Full serve was $5.45 a gallon. We taxied out and departed runway three two keeping watch for an aircraft out a PFAIR, 10 miles out, in the hold flying the RNAV 14 approach. I climbed out turning at a forty-five to the north clearing the approach for the inbound traffic.

Old St. Georges Bridge and the New Senator William V. Roth, Jr. Bridge

It was a bumpy flight home all the way north of Dover AFB that left Mary wanting to sleep, her way of dealing with the bumps. The Zaon PCAS alerted me to traffic at my three and there was a C5 in the pattern.  Hmmm, I should really be talking to Dover even though their airspace is two thousand six hundred and below and I am cruising along at three thousand. I called for flight following and was given a squawk along with directions to maintain VFR at or above three thousand. I acknowledged.

As soon as we cleared the traffic from the AFB we were directed to resume own navigation, I then cancelled.  I thanked the controller for his service and switched over to Wilmington to listen for traffic since I now had an airbus shadowing me at my three. Frontier was inbound for the visual runway one nine, flying on the Jersey side of the Delaware river so we were working our way farther apart. I skirted Wilmington's airspace to the south west then once clear I dropped down to two thousand to locate New Garden. I fell in number two to land and made a nice landing. As I was rolling out I must have added to much brake pressure and I heard the right main skid, not a nice way to treat 08Romeo. We taxied off and secured 08Romeo in her hangar, calling it a day. 2.2 overall and a fun get-away before the next snow storm.

Ziva waiting for us at home.