Sandy Point, VA

[Kevin's Post]A front came through last night with torrential rain and northerly winds behind it. We like northerly winds because now that we are heading south it gives us better odds that we'll be able to use the wind to get some decent sailing speeds. Today did not disappoint, the forecast was for 15-20 out of the NW and we went faster than we have in a long time. We sailed about 20 miles down to the mouth of the Potomac with the wind directly behind us, then turned south after Smith Point Light for another 10 miles, then west up the Great Wicomico river. With one reef in the main, we were doing 8-9 a lot of the way and occasionally saw the speed in the double digits. We outran several monohulls. We passed about 5 miles east of Reedville, and even as far away as we were, the stench of the fish processing plant was unmistakable.

Where we are:
Location=Sandy Point, VA
Lat=37 49.345
Lon=76 18.896

Kinsale, VA

[Kevin's Post]We crossed the Potomac to the south side which means we have left MD and are in Virginia now. There was no wind so we just motored the 15 or so miles. We anchored off the Port Kinsale Marina because we had read they had a good restaurant and we were ready for a meal off the boat. They did not disappoint, we had beers, crab dip as an appetizer, I had a big cheeseburger, Amanda had a prime rib sandwich. We were stuffed.

At 3AM this morning we woke up to a loud noise which sounded like somebody climbing over the lifelines onto our boat. I jumped out of bed and flicked on the deck light which is a big flood light half way up the mast that illuminates the entire exterior of the boat. I figure if anybody was out there, that would give them a scare. I took a walk around the deck of the boat in my flannel pajamas, pepper spray in hand, just to make sure there wasn't a anybody on a skiff or anything. Nobody was there though, it must have been a big bird or something.


Where we are:
Location=Kinsale, VA
Lat=38 01.678 N
Lon=76 33.557 W

St. Mary's City, MD

[Kevin's Post]We left Solomons after topping off our water tanks and headed south for the Potomac. Another good day of downwind motorsailing. Just across the Patuxent from Solomons is a naval air base and there are constantly military aircraft flying around the area some of them low enough that you can practically see the crew. There is a target range in the water that they use for bombing practice and the navy range boats hail every boat going by on the VHF warning them to stay 1/4 mile from the range. Well, I figure that if they need practice, I'm going to stay more than 1/4 mile away. We overheard the navy say to one boat "They're fairly accurate most of the time". We turned up the Potomac to go to St. Mary's City which was the original capitol of Maryland. The Governor's cup race goes from Annapolis to here so we figured there must be stuff to see/do. Other than the college, it was pretty much a ghost town. In order to preserve the historic nature of the town, they have banned all commerce within a mile radius.


Where we are:
Location=St Marys City, MD
Lat=38 11.556
Lon=76 25.909

Solomons, MD

[Kevin's Post]Yes, we are embarrassed to admit it, but we are back in Solomons. We needed to hit a marina to refill our water tank, and Solomons was just the most convenient place to stop without going farther north. We had a nice sail over from St. Michaels, it was about 40 miles and we had a good wind most of the way. It's always nice when the wind allows you to go faster than the engines. At Solomons, we went up back creek towards the Spring Cove fuel dock because we got a good wifi signal last time we anchored there. We had just dropped the anchor and started to let out the chain when a trawler pulls up about 50 feet off our beam and drops his anchor. Now this would have been way too close even if we were done anchoring, but we hadn't even let out all our chain yet! So, I stand on the bow, giving them the stink eye, he's on his bow looking at us like he's waiting for something. This goes on for a few minutes. I go back to the cockpit, we back down on our anchor to set it, they do the same. I neutral out the starboard engine, leaving the port in reverse just for fun. Our boat starts to swing over toward the trawler. Amanda says, 'Oh, don't do that'. She never lets me have any fun. We've only asked people to move a few times, and most of the time that we do, they pick up, re-anchor, and end up in the exact same spot anyway. So, this time we just picked up and moved to a different spot giving them a second stink eye in the process. The proximity of the grocery, west marine, etc, makes this a pretty popular anchorage and it gets pretty crowded. Even after moving, by the end of the day we had a small flotilla of boats directly upwind of us. It's always nervewracking to have boats so close upwind because if they drag, they're going to hit you and you probably won't have time to do anything about it. And the forecast for the weekend is 25 knots gusting to 30.

Saturday was my birthday and Amanda made me delicious apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast. As forecasted, the wind pipes up in the afternoon. I look out the window and see a boat about 10 feet off our bow. We run outside in a panic thinking that we are about to get smacked. It's the green boat in the picture (in the picture it is about 40 feet away). And of course there is no one on board. We stand there and watch it for a while, a few people from other boats are enjoying the show. After watching it for a while it appears to not be getting any closer. We decide they aren't dragging, they probably just have more anchor chain out and are swinging a larger circle than we are. With them directly in front of us, there is no way for us to haul up the anchor and move. So all we could do is let out more chain and hope that they aren't in fact dragging. It all turned out ok this time, the wind shifted after a few hours and they floated away from us. By the time they returned they were several boat lengths away and they had no idea how close they came to hitting us.



Where we are:
Location=Solomons, MD
Lat=38 20.232
Lon=76 27.592

St. Michaels, MD

Technically, we are still in San Domingo Creek, so the boat hasn't moved. But for the past three days we have gone ashore and wandered around St. Michaels which is a popular tourist spot on the East Bay. Saturday it rained all day but then right around dinnertime it looked like it was going to clear up so we got in the dinghy and headed to shore. Of course the skies opened up just as we were landing the boat, so we got soaked but the sun came out a few minutes later and we were able to explore and grab a bite at the local saloon. The town is the epitome of small-town America -- one main street with shops, restaurants, etc. Most of the shops sell knick-knacks, bric-a-brac, and various other hyphenated-type craftwork. We window-shopped until it started to get dark, then headed back to the boat to discover a minor flood. We had left one of the ports open in the bathroom to keep airflow going through the boat (kind of a stupid thing to do when it's RAINING OUTSIDE) and the water just trickled in to the bathroom filling it with about an inch of water. Of course that is one of the few compartments in the boat that doesn't drain directly into the bilge, so I waded in there and started sopping things up with a towel. It was dry in no time, so it wasn't too big of a mishap. Lesson learned.

Sunday was a sunny day so we hit the local Maritime museum (pretty much every small town on the Bay has one) and oohed and ahhed over the (now very familiar) exhibits on crabbing, oystering, and fishing that seem to be the staple of all of these museums. We have promised each other that this was the last, the absolute last, maritime museum we will visit for a while. You can only look at so many pairs of antique oyster tongs before enough is enough. On our way back to the boat we also hit the local grocery store, "Acme", a name that for me conjures up images of Wile E. Coyote strapping on Acme brand rocket roller skates in a vain quest to catch the Roadrunner. Meep-meep!

Today was more of the same, looking in at some of the shops, picking up a few more groceries, and having dinner at one of the waterfront restaurants. It's been a pleasant couple of days but we are in for more rain this week. This time we'll remember to keep the ports closed during the downpours.

San Domingo Creek, MD

Tuesday was a pretty nice day, weather-wise. We decided to load the bikes up into the dinghy and go for a ride. Kevin had programmed the local streets into the handheld GPS so we wouldn't get lost, I packed a lunch and off we went. This part of Maryland is really pretty. It's mostly farmland and tiny towns. Our eleven mile trek took us past tobacco (or at least a green leafy substance that we thought was tobacco) and corn fields as well as a few picturesque farmhouses. At the end of the ride we stopped at a park and ate lunch while watching sailboats on the Tred Avon river.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was mostly rainy and the wind shifted from north to south, which usually isn't a big deal but because of where we set our anchor we ended up aground. We didn't drag of course, but when the tide went out we discovered we were in only 3.5 feet of water (we need at least four for the boat to float). No problem. We decided to just wait until the tide came back in and then move the boat to a better spot. But in the meantime Kevin scrubbed the transom steps which are usually awash in dingy brown water. So in a way being aground was a good thing.

Today we decided to move the boat up the peninsula a ways to San Domingo creek. It's close to a town called St. Michaels which is supposed to be kind of a tourist destination on this side of the bay. It rained most of the day today so we haven't been able to go ashore yet, but hopefully this weekend it will clear up a bit.

Where we are:
Location=San Domingo Creek
Lat=38 46.333
Lon=76 13.869

Oxford, MD

We are now on the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay, on what is called the Delmarva Penninsula. "Delmarva" sounds like it could've been the name used by Native Americans, but it's not -- it's something people around here made up because the peninsula has parts of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Clever people, these chesapeakans. As we were heading into Oxford yesterday, a lady on another catamaran ran up to the front of her boat and started waving frantically at us. We weren't sure what was going on but we turned our boat toward them to see if they needed help. Turns out that the couple also owns a Manta catamaran down in Florida. Yesterday they were sailing their other boat, a 34 foot Gemini catamaran. They were waving just to say hi and introduce themselves. We ended up anchoring in the same creek and they invited us over for drinks. Leo and Betty have owned two Manta catamarans -- the first one got gored by a tanker while they were at anchor in the Bahamas; it put a hole right in the side of their boat a few feet from where they were sleeping. Luckily, when the tanker backed off the hole kind of closed itself up and they were able to save the boat -- no one was hurt. Mantas are tough little boats.

It was interesting to hear them talk about their sailing adventures. They have been all over the place -- Belize, Mexico, Bahamas. They are planning to sail their Gemini up the Hudson River and through Canada over to the Great Lakes area. Whenever we meet older retired couples on boats, it never ceases to amaze us how much more adventurous they are than us. This couple was in their sixties and we felt like old fogeys in comparison.

Today we walked around Oxford a bit. There's not much going on in these sleepy little towns, but it's nice to get ashore and stretch your legs. They did have some nice bike paths though so we are going to try a bike ride tomorrow if the weather is nice.

Where we are:
Location=Oxford, MD
Lat=38 41.488
Lon=76 09.907

Hudson Creek, MD

[Kevin's Post] Well, the rain finally let up on Wednesday, so we left St. Leonard's creek and went back to Solomons to take care of a few errands. I had ordered some metric box wrenches which hadn't arrived before we left, but they came while we were gone. Also we wanted to pick up a few things from West Marine and the grocery store before heading across the bay. As we motored through Solomons past our old slip at Beacon marina, we were shocked to see that a boat had sunk at the marina just a few slips from where we were. We had walked past this boat 5 times a day for the last month and immediately recognized it from its mast and rigging (which was all you could see above the water). The marina had put a ring of floats around the sunken boat to try to soak up any oil and fuel leaking from the it. It was an older boat, and we figure it must have had some leaks that allowed rain in, or a clogged cockpit scupper that wouldn't allow the rain out, and Ernesto was just too much for it to take. We felt bad that we had left just a few days earlier, if we had been there, we may have noticed it going down and could have done something. As we left Solomons this morning, we saw that they had managed to refloat the boat. This is not a simple thing to do, requiring divers, a couple barges and a lot of people. Getting the boat out of there no doubt cost more than the boat was worth in the first place. They had tied it to a barge and were pushing it out to the Patuxent. I'm not sure what they were going to do with it, but if we ever see Jerry the dockmaster again we'll have to get the rest of the story. They say that most recreational boats that sink, sink at their docks.

Today we cruised about 25 miles across to the East side of the Chesapeake to a place called Hudson Creek. We're anchored in a cove with a half dozen other boats. Pretty busy for a Friday afternoon, but I guess it is a popular spot. The weather has really cooled off, getting down to the low 60s at night and high 70s during the day. I've started wearing socks again for the first time in about 6 months.

Where we are:
Location=Hudson Creek, MD
Lat=38 32.464 N
Lon=76 14.702 W

St. Leonards Creek, MD - Ernesto & Vera

Well Ernesto came and went on Friday. We were deluged with rain all day and saw wind gusts as high as 35 miles an hour. As the Black Night in Monty Python's Holy Grail said: "I've had worse." So it wasn't too bad, and definitely less severe than predicted. The storm surge raised the water level so that some of the private docks in the creek were underwater, but since we were at anchor it didn't affect us.

On Saturday, the sun actually came out a little in the afternoon, so we headed up the creek to a restaurant called Vera's White Sands Beach Club. We had read an article online (http://www.citypaper.com/special/story.asp?id=6635) describing it as a tacky, tiki getaway run by an eccentric old lady (Vera). Apparently, in her heyday she was a "hollywood starlet" (or so she claims) and built this tiki resort back in the 60's. So we had low expectations for a kitschy establishment with (hopefully) decent food. But it appears that Vera's health has been in decline, so the new management has revamped and remodeled. We were a little disappointed and yet at the same time relieved. It still has the tiki theme, but it now has chic-tacky decor, complete with leopard print chairs and barstools and beaded-curtained alcoves instead of booths. All tables had a fantastic view of the water and sunset, and the food was excellent. While the inside of the restaurant seemed somewhat upscale, at least on the exterior some of the tackiness has survived, since they have fake palm trees on all the grounds and the outside patio is still shaped like the bow of a ship. Did I mention they had an Elvis impersonator? Classy.