The weather forecast showed two nice days in a row in the middle of the week so we decided to take a short trip out to Dobbins Island to stay overnight and do a little swimming. The wind was light that day so we decided to go past Dobbins Island and out of the Magothy river to try and catch some better wind in the middle of the bay. This was a shakedown of sorts for our staysail. We’d been storing both kayaks on deck on the port side gunwale for the past few cruises. On those trips the wind had been such that we never had occasion to use the staysail. Then we went out for a day sail in high winds to get some heavy air practice and discovered that the position of one of the kayaks impeded the operation of the furling line for the staysail and we couldn’t unroll it all the way or roll it back up easily. Later that day back at the dock we repositioned the kayaks and hoped the problem would be solved next time. It was. The staysail set just right and we sailed for a while as a cutter in a 6 knot breeze. The boat was able to maintain 3.5 knots on a close reach in the light air which we were happy about given how heavy it is now with all our stuff aboard.

Having anchored close in behind Dobbins Island many times before, we decided this time to snug up in front of Little Island. This was in part because of the predicted wind direction for that evening (NNW), but also because of the interesting view from this position in Sillery Bay. Not only could we see the sailboat races that evening (the normal Wednesday night series on the Magothy), but from the cockpit we could see out the mouth of the Magothy to the spans of the Bay Bridge and also had a beautiful view of both Little Island and Dobbins Island.

That day we took the dinghy up to the beach on Dobbins and took one of our favorite walks far out on the sandbar that connects Dobbins to the north shore. We went for a swim there on the beach and very much enjoyed that it was quiet and there were only a few other people/boats there, very unlike the weekends.

We went back to the boat and swam some more, then got cleaned up and had dinner courtesy of chef Paula.

After dinner we watched the aforementioned sailboat races with a great view of the start/finish line and saw a nice sunset. We did see a large power boat motoring too close to Little Island when it quite abruptly went aground at speed. No one appeared hurt and this seemed more an embarrassing example of inattention to the charts. There were only three other boats anchored in Sillery Bay that night (compared to over a hundred on a summer weekend). We had a good night sleep and had no problem with the anchor.

The next morning, we had breakfast and lingered a bit to enjoy the view and the quiet. We needed to get back to the marina to shop in food for dinner guests that evening and motored all the way back since the wind had died completely. A short but very enjoyable trip. Nice to have a place like Sillery Bay so close to our marina.