Maryland

Day 71: Should we go to Annapolis?

karenstark

5/22/18:  Our plan was to go back west across the Chesapeake to Annapolis.  (Yes – I have us zigzagging our way back and forth across the bay as we move north.)  Way back when we were in Crisfield, we were told that Annapolis would be crazy with the United States Naval Academy commencement week.  There would be the Blue Angels, and even President Trump was speaking, so there would be lots of extra security around.  We even told other people that this might not be the week to go to Annapolis.  What were we thinking?  The day started out overcast and feeling very much like Seattle weather.  Anchor Goddess Karen got up on the bow with the wiener dog hose to wash down the VERY muddy anchor chain, one foot at a time as it came up.  That is a very long process, but so thankful for the washdown!  Without it, our whole anchor cubby would be full of mud!  And away we go!  Because we had come to St. Michaels via the “backdoor”, we had to go south before we could go north.  There was just a breeze from the south today, so it wasn’t an unpleasant ride.

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Day 70: Sneaking into St. Michaels

karenstark

5/21/18:  Up and atum and we get to go!  Time to go northeast, across the Chesapeake Bay again, to St. Michaels.  We asked several people about St Michaels, Oxford, or Cambridge.  We found that it is like asking people chocolate, vanilla, or coffee ice cream.  Everybody has their favorite.  We are ready for a small town that actually has restaurants and a nice walkable town.  So St Michaels won.  It is generally the most popular among cruisers.  I had also read and been told that we can approach it from the south, and anchor in a nice bay, and take the dinghy to a town dock.  This is known as sneaking in the “back door” and is an option instead of going all the way around to the north side and dropping into the marina in town (which I think is a little spendy).  The red line and arrow show that route.  We took the green route.  It was a little choppity with a north breeze out on the bay today.  Not really rough; barely whitecaps.  It was just choppity for awhile.  Once we got tucked in south of land, it settled down nicely.

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Days 65,66: The Potomac and the Patuxent

karenstark

5/16/18:  Today we found ourselves coasting down the Potomac River and then cruising up the Patuxent River.  When we looked at the hourly forecast for Wednesday, it showed Zeus’s lightening bolts on every hour of the day.  Great, just great.  We don’t like boating with Zeus – the Greek god of lightening.  At final check before going to sleep, we might have a 4 hour window in the morning without Zeus.  Alarm set for 5:30.  😳😴  With eyeballs barely open, get up and check the latest forecast.  Not that we can actually stay here another night anyway because they’re booked (we asked) but what will our plan be?  It looks like there may be less Zeus activity than previously predicted. OK then – let’s get going! I bailed out poor Stuart.  The way he sits on his cradle, a lot of water lays in the V bottom before it will get high enough to drain out the hole in the back.   We untied about 6:30 and cruised out of DC, and past Alexandria.  With all of the rain that we’ve had the last two nights, there was a LOT of debris in the river!!  So far, so good.  A little bit of rain, but no thunder or lightening.  Our plan B was to go up Breton Bay to Occaquan if we needed to get off the river after about four hours.  We’ve heard it is a neat town.  But the weather was mild and cooperating, so we kept going with plan A to go back to Colonial Beach.   With the next 5 days showing lightening storms every day all day long, we decided to go as far as we can, when we can, to make progress to the next place that we planned to visit.  Unfortunately, once that decision is made, it turns into about a 70 mile trip, because there are very few places to stay in between on this River Potomac.  So I called Mr. Bill at the Boathouse Marina in Colonial Beach, and he said our same slip was open and waiting for us.  He is such a nice man!  Plan A it is! Read more →

Day 61: Washington’s Mount Vernon

karenstark

5/12/18:  I woke up at 5:00am to the combined sound of 5 dozen bass boats, all running and ready to go!  Sure enough, at 6:00, they started scooting past us like they each had a license to fly.  I have always thought it funny that a bass boat needs to be able to go 80 mph so that it can zoom to it’s favorite spot, then putt along with an electric motor at 1/4 mph, then zoom 80 mph to the next spot, and repeat.  But when there is a tournament involved, it makes sense – get there, get the fish, get back for the WIN!

We pulled up anchor and headed out of our beautiful anchor spot, although not nearly as quickly as we expected.  It sure is a good thing that Plumber Kenny made the wiener dog hose work as an anchor wash down.  Oh my grubby goodness the anchor chain was caked with mud!  It took anchor goddess Karen about 15 minutes to bring up the anchor…about 4 feet at a time, while spraying a steady stream of water on it.  What a mucky mess!  But the anchor held great, and the wash down worked great too! Read more →

Day 60: First swim at Mattawoman Creek

karenstark

5/11/18:  The other day, just as we were approaching the channel for Colonial Beach, we heard a fisherman hail a “range boat” for permission to come out and go fishing.  The range boat responded that the river would be open at 5:00.  We asked the folks at the marina about the procedures for clearance on the river.  The gal told us that the Navy has a “live range” here, and they will see us and contact us with navigation instructions if need be.  Or we can call them on the VHF and ask them for instructions.  We weren’t in a big hurry to go this morning.  It was so very calm- how nice – and we only had about 4.5 hours of travel.  As we left the Boathouse Marina behind us, we set out on the glassy sea.

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Day 57: A quiet day in Crisfield

karenstark

5/8/18: The term “watermen” has been documented back to the 1400’s.  In the early years of the Chesapeake seafood industry, the shellfish catchers were often knows as crabbers or oystermen.  But then they started doing both – oysters in the winter, crabs in the summer – so they became known as watermen.  The crab pots that they use here for blue crab are a little different than what we use in the Puget Sound to catch Dungeness crabs.  First, these have to have a TED… turtle excluder device – which is the rectangle at the end of the cone shaped entry at the bottom.  Apparently if a turtle can fit in, he can crawl back out, since there is no spring-shut flapping door that closes behind him.  Next, the pot has a tent inside, which is quite different.  The crabs crawl in, get stressed out when they can’t escape, so they climb up looking for a way out. They get stuck in the upstairs parlor.  The ‘cull ring’ at the top is so that the little itty bitties can crawl back out.  The traps only last a couple of years, so the watermen are good at making their own traps.

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Day 56: Day trippin to Tangier Island

karenstark

5/7/18:  One of the most unique places on the Chesapeake Bay is Tangier Island.  The island itself is sinking and losing shoreline every year.  Some estimates are that the island will be uninhabitable in 30 years.  There are about 400 people that currently live on the island.  The island was settled by John Crockett in 1685, and many of the locals still have the last name Crockett, Parks and Pruitt.  The way of life is that of the ‘watermen’.   One of the reasons that navigator Karen had us coming to Crisfield was so that we could take a ferry over to Tangier.  I’d read that staying at the marina in Tangier was a little rustic, and that taking the ferry over for the day was a good way to see it.  Sherry & Alan planned to do the same.  Well, we discovered that the tourist season doesn’t start until next week.  But, we were lucky because the ferry would be running today, Monday.  The reason?  The American Cruise Line was here in Crisfield today, and had an excursion to Tangier Island for its passengers!  We lucked out on this plan!

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Day 55: Fog, AIS, Radar, Maryland

karenstark

5/6/18:  Oh boy.  FOG?  Who requested FOG?  Don’t you know we can’t see in FOG?  Maybe it won’t be so bad.

We kind of considered staying in Kilmarnock, but we knew that we were parked in a long term tenant’s spot, and didn’t know when that boat would be coming back and be wanting his spot.  The forecast had been calling for thunderstorms today.  And there was a small craft advisory somewhere.  The marina office was closed today, so we couldn’t just extend ourselves another day.  The weather forecast that I looked at this morning called for very calm wind and water, and a chance of showers in the afternoon.  No more thunderousboomus in the forecast.   Our plan was to go 45 miles and go across Chesapeake Bay to the eastern shore.  A nice calm day is good for that agenda, but there was some fog that we could see.  Maybe it wouldn’t last long – it wasn’t on any of the forecasts.  We cast off the lines and headed out.  Beautiful calm water, and the fog had lifted a bit.  At least with calm water, we could see the crab pot buoys, and there was a zillion of them!  When we looked at the weather, Kenny mentioned small craft advisory.  I saw it too, and kept wondering why – it was calm!  Was the advisory for fog?  None of the forecasts said anything about fog.  And it was as calm as could be.   I was confused. Read more →