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