Canal Day is done...

There is not going to be a Canal Day or Canal Fest this year. I am going to miss big parts of it but the decision was an understandable one considering .....

Civic Association votes to cancel its part of Canal Day

Is the land part of Canal Day done? Say it ain't so.

Will Anthony Weiner show up at Canal Day?

Keep an out this year for this bulge. Now that its owner is out of Congress, word is he's looking for a little action.

Canal Day 2009 slideshow

With the 2010 Canal Day only days away, here's a slideshow a visitor to the blog posted in the comments section. Some are not safe for work.

Here's the link

Are You Ready?

The forecast for Saturday is looking fantastic .... Click on the weather icon at the lower right of this page to check it out.

Taking the ferry?

At right is the schedule for the ferry if you want to use it to cross the canal during Canal Day. Just click on the schedule it to make it bigger. In case you don't know –– it's a people ferry only. No cars.

Getting in with The Inn Crowd

The Chesapeake Inn is doing it big again this year.

Thursday night on the deck is Frozen Drink Night ($5 for 20 oz.) and Mug Night (domestic beers $2 in a mug)... Glass Onion plays from 6-10

On Friday, it gets kicked up a notch with Kristen and The Noise (shown above in Herndon, Va., in 2008). They'll be in the Festival Area from 7-11. Also playing is The Approach (7-11) and DJ Doug from 11-1:30 a.m. inside.

It all breaks loose on Saturday with a rotation of bands starting at noon ... Click on the name to learn more about each band:

• Plastic Parts
• Betty Ford Dropouts
• HyJinx
• What Mama Said
• The bands will be followed by DJ Doug and DJ Dan.

Featured specials and promotions include Cruzan Rum, Absolut, Jagermeister, Malibu, Three Olives, Budweiser, Coors, Miller Lite.

Please remember to visit the town and shop some with the vendors and other restaurants during the day on Saturday.... It's a town-wide event that needs your support.

Thanks....

The long arms of the law

Read the entire press release here

Now let's get this party started.....

What you boaters need to know

Here's some advice for the 2009 Canal Day from Lt. Joshua N. Blocker of the U.S. Coast Guard. Lt. Blocker runs the show for the USCG on the water in the Chesapeake City basin on Canal Day and the days leading up to it:

1. Do everyone a favor if you're planning on indulging in some adult beverages ... hide the keys to your boat!!! Of all boating fatalities in the U.S. Last year, 21% were attributed to alcohol which means 100% of those deaths were needless and totally preventable.
2. Be mindful of carbon monoxide poisoning, especially if your're running a portable generator on your boat, when you pull into the basin and "set up shop" for the weekend. Overnight, the winds have a tendency to shift and that could blow the fumes back into your boat.
3. Water balloons and water guns are fine by me...what makes the hair on our neck stand up are the guys with the three-man slingshot firing frozen water balloons into the crowd at the Chesapeake Inn...not only is it NOT funny, but expect a visit from the Coast Guard, DNR and Cecil County Sheriffs deputies (remember - "bad things come in threes")...
4. If you need emergency assistance and call 911, please identify your location as the Chesapeake City Basin...we had a couple of calls last year where the callers said they were in the C&D Canal, when they were actually within earshot of us. Misidentification of your location will cause needless delay for the responders.
5. Basin closure... I get a lot of these questions...there is no fixed number when we decide to close the basin. It's based on the existing capacity at the time, ease of movement for response vessels should an incident (search and rescue, fire fighting, medevac) occur, etc. The last two years I was there, closure occurred right around 2 pm. Also, closure of the basin does not affect personal watercraft (PWCs), which by their design do not have navigation lights and have to be gone before sunset anyways...and they're small too.
6. PFDs...While there is a legal requirement for their to be enough serviceable CG-approved life jackets for every person on a boat while underway, there isn't really a legal requirement to wear one while swimming in the basin...but here's our advice - wear one anyways and here's why...as the number of boats flooding into the basin increases Friday and Saturday, your going to want all the help you can get to make yourself more visible to the inbound boat drivers. Put yourself in their shoes for a 'sec...they're trying to enter the basin, find a spot to tie off, dodging other boats in the process, etc...talk about task saturation. Now enter into the mix a swimmer (no PFD) who all you can see is their head. A life jacket does two things...It makes the swimmer more buoyant, keeping the wearer higher in the water and life jackets usually have color schemes and patterns that also make the wearer more visible. For us, it seems like a win-win situation...
7. While the Army Corps boat ramp will be blocked off, the small floating pier/dock will be open. Fact, we'd rather see people use that than walking over the slippery rocks that line the back basin.
8. No...we're not going to be "stopping every boat entering the basin to confiscate all your beer and liquor" as was erroneously reported last year. I would need a 200-person crew and would have to start boarding boats a week before Canal Days even starts...and I seem to recall Prohibition ended over 80 years ago.
9. Be extremely careful if you're going to be cooking on your boat.
10. Make sure you take care of the Inn dockmaster and dock crew, bartenders and waitresses...the crew at the Inn does one hell of a job, so show some appreciation.
11. Get into town! Although the water-side festivities tend to take center stage, you'd be missing out if you didn't get into town and help yourself to the wares being sold by the vendors.
12. HAVE FUN! If you're not, then you're doing something wrong.

If the above tips don't answer your basin boating questions, Lt. Blocker offers his e-mail for questions.

"I have absolutely no issues with folks emailing me directly in order to obtain correct info...Canal Days is too fun an event to lose out on because someone got some bad info."
Lt. Blocker at Joshua.N.Blocker@uscg.mil

LT Joshua N. Blocker
Chief, Incident Management Division
U.S. Coast Guard Sector Baltimore

It's time to get serious .....

Canal Day is just over a month away.

Are you making party plans yet?