June 14th-On the morning of the departure of our first multi-day shakedown cruise, we had a good omen in the form of violent splashing off our stern. At first, I thought we were seeing shark fins! On closer inspection as the splashing continued, it became clear that we were seeing skates-rays that live in the Bay, but aren’t often seen in our marina. Given the normal opaque green brown of bay water, we couldn’t see the whole of the creatures, but managed to get a few pix of the fins of two (or three?) frolicking or perhaps fighting, just behind our boat.
We left 7:59 AM in 15 knot winds entering into the Magothy river from our marina and headed for the Rhode River 24 miles to the southeast. Paula piloted, and Tommy managed the sails. We sailed on a beam reach out of the Magothy (heading east), but were able to then broad reach the whole way to our destination after turning south. Spent the afternoon, evening and overnight in the Rhode River-kayaking, picture-taking. It was quiet, cool and breezy with wispy clouds. Excellent sunset and sunrise. Salmon, broccoli and corn on the cob. Popcorn and chocolate. Watched the gibbous moon and Saturn.
June 15th– After breakfast we pulled the anchor and had a cloudy cool motor to Shaw Bay off the eastern branch of the Wye River. Spitting rain at times. We anchored and the sun came out unexpectedly-we went for a nice ride around the anchorage in our inflatable dinghy, Poltergeist. There were beautiful huge homes on shore, many historic, according to the cruising guide. One appeared to be a museum. There were only two other sailboats in the Bay, both anchored distant from C Ghost. One was a blue-hulled beauty whose three occupants went paddle boarding as soon as they dropped anchor. A man, a woman, and their beautiful huge white dog-the dog stood proudly on the front of the woman’s paddleboard in his own dog-sized life jacket.
Paula, encouraged by the numbers of fish leaping and splashing all around us tried fishing using frozen cooked mussels as bait. For a long time, there were no bites-then we landed a single baby rockfish maybe 7 inches long. We threw it back unharmed and vigorous, but Paula got poked by his fin spines and punctured her finger on the hook. Not exactly an episode of “Wicked Tuna”. We napped.
June 16th-Next morning, at 5:30 am, we became aware of a working crab boat in our isolated misty bay, slowly getting closer, closer, until he was so close to our bow, that Paula was able to lay a hand on his cabin top, as we called good morning, and asked what was the matter. The grizzled and apparently ancient Captain told us in his very distinctive Eastern Shore accent that he had an unmarked trot line out, apparently expecting the small bay to be deserted, and our anchor line and his trot line had become entangled. We apologized, and he was gracious about it.
“There weren’t no way you coulda’ knowed it was there, but out of the whole bay, whooda’ thought you’d anchor over this-here tiny line?”
He held up the thin 3/8” “line” out of the water, before sadly severing it with a knife that Rambo would have been proud to own. We met one other person that day. A sailboater from the third boat in the anchorage came around in his dinghy looking for information about a potential dinghy dock on Wye Island. His name was Paul, he was British, friendly and very “salty-looking”.
Later that day we had an even bigger surprise, when a light plane suddenly buzzed the anchorage, and briefly skimmed the surface. It had no pods for water landing, and we suffered a moment of sheer adrenaline until the clearly skilled pilot then lifted his small craft from the surface of the bay, leaving an airplane wake behind! We looked up his craft numbers, and the plane is listed as an “acrobatic” craft.
We decided to stay in Shaw Bay for the second night, as thunderstorms were forecast, and we were in a protected location from the expected direction of the wind that night. Tommy made preparations to set a second anchor if needed.
We watched the radar carefully, and did have some thunderstorms, but no really high wind, and tolerable rain. We had leftover roasted chicken breasts in vegetable/sausage gravy, couscous, and steamed cabbage. Tommy slept in the cockpit-Paula did too till 2am, then as things were calming down, she went to bed.
June 17th– Early morning winds were 15 knots and the cloudy skies were clearing. Although we had intended to stay a 3rd day in Shaw Bay, the wind forecast had changed, predicting a strong east wind which would allow us to sail fast all the way to Annapolis. Therefore, we decided to leave that morning. We pulled anchor easily, mud bottom -no sign of the cut trot line. At this point we were the sole boat left in the anchorage. We headed off to Annapolis-at first we had some good downwind sailing but then the wind veered to the north (not east as predicted).
As we rounded Bloody point we were close hauled and tacking into a weakening north wind. As often happens on the Bay, the wind got very light and was right on our nose so we motored the rest of the way into Annapolis harbor. The mooring field was less than 1/3 full and we easily picked up #10 mooring buoy, across from the Naval Academy Visitor’s Center. We dinghy’d into town, and celebrated our dual birthdays and 30th anniversary dinner at Luna Blue, a very small and delicious Italian restaurant. We then tried to walk our huge meal off by strolling down Main Street, and visiting a very cool bookshop. We bought a 1st Edition book about Benedict Arnold as Tommy is going through a Revolutionary War phase. On the way back to our boat in Poltergeist, we saw the same gorgeous blue-hulled sailboat we encountered in Shaw Bay on a mooring buoy only a few boats away, recognizable by their blue hull and large white paddle boarding dog. They recognized us as well, and we briefly chatted dinghy to paddleboard style.
June18th-After the quiet of the two anchorages we had just enjoyed, Annapolis on a weekend seemed like a never-ending raucous party. Sleek power boats with big engines and boat bunnies draped over their cabin-tops growled by. Voices were many and loud. Paddleboards, kayaks, dinghies and occasional swimmers dotted the choppy water. A classic car show with accompanying festive live music materialized on the waterfront square. We put the kayaks in the water and went for a 2 hour paddle/pedal up the entire length of Spa creek. It’s amazing how much water activity there is on this creek on a nice summer day. As a result, there ends up being a chop in the water all day long, even without any wind or current present. Tom managed to make contact with a friend from his former office who lives with his family on a sailboat in Eastport. Arrangements were made to for a visit and boat tour later in the day and then dinner together in town. Five of us piled into our friends’ dinghy and motored to the dinghy dock in Ego Alley. We ate at a Mexican restaurant and had a great time. That evening was a bit more calm (surprising for a Saturday) and we got good sleep.
June 19th – The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast onboard and decided to leave for home when a 10 knot breeze out of the south piped up. We were able to sail on a broad reach for about 6 miles before the wind died completely and we motored the rest of the way. Because this was Father’s day combined with calm sunny weather, there were hundreds of fishing boats anchored or drifting all around the Bay Bridge. It was constant maneuvering to weave in-between them on the way back to the Magothy. Nevertheless, we were back in our slip by 2PM.
Some technical notes:
This was the 1st real test of our new 65 lb Mantus anchor in any kind of wind. We’ve used it three times previously but always in winds less than 10 knots. Thursday evening in Shaw bay a thunderstorm rolled through bringing with it 15 knot winds and gusts to 20. The anchor held perfectly. Shaw Bay is deep – we were in 18’ of water and let out about 100’ of chain to get a 5:1 scope.
This was also a good test of our new TPPL deep cycle house batteries (there will be an upcoming post dedicated to this topic). We were never “plugged-in” for the six days we were out on this cruise and relied a lot on the solar panels and the ability of these new batteries to be cycled below 50% without hurting their lifespan. Between the solar panels, reserve energy in the batteries, and the periods we had to motor from place to place, we had plenty of energy and never came close to needing to run the generator.
We used a great anchor watch app for our phones called “Drag Queen” (the cleverness never ends with some app developers J). When the anchor goes down and hits bottom, you hit a button on the app that marks its GPS location. Depending on how much scope you let out, you then enter the number of feet away from your anchor you are comfortable being before an alarm will go off. This worked flawlessly -too flawlessly at one point. When we went for a dinghy ride, I packed my phone in the dry bag and forgot to turn the alarm off. Once the dinghy (and phone) got a short distance away from the boat, the anchor alarm started blaring out of the phone startling us both and causing much confusion. We now know better. This app does draw a lot of power from the phone and creates the need to have a USB phone charging port somewhere in the cockpit. This is something I’d been meaning to do anyway, but now have a good reason for it.
2 Responses
“Drag Queen”….fabulous! Loved reading this!
It’s a little addictive and we have to restrain ourselves from looking at it during every little wind gust. The three times we’ve anchored with it thus far, the anchor hasn’t moved at all. In fact, on one of those nights when we had little wind, the weight of the chain alone kept us in place. I knew this because, after setting the anchor, every time I looked at Drag Queen our distance to the anchor was much less than the amount of chain we subsequently let out after setting.