Mill Creek at Night

This time at Solomons Island, we chose to anchor about a 1/2 mile up Mill Creek, a right turn north after entering the main harbor. How to describe it.......I wanted to take a picture to hold in my memory, but a camera cannot capture the beauty of the night. Stillness like a mirror, with each light doubled in the darkness, strings of fairy lights the length of a dock, above and below. Anchor lights are hung from the mast tops like stars in the sky, and hung again beneath. In the center of our view, lining the water, massive oaks and maples, blooming blacker thasn the night. A full moon, hazy in the misty sky, gives a pale glow. Across the water, a man's deep laughter, is answered in kind by the soprano lilt of a woman. Crickets whisper ashore and ducks murmer somewhere, unseen in the darkness.  From another direction, distant notes of a flute float through the night. We sit a long time in the cockpit, becoming one with the moment.

Annapolis: Reunions and the Boat Show

We'd scheduled our arrival to coincide with Rick's 45th class reunion at the Naval Academy at the end of September/beginning of October. Much to our delight, the winds picked up just as we left the Patapsco River into Baltimore and left most of the debris, including tires and metal tanks, behind us. So we sailed at last in the Chesapeake and into Annapolis Harbor. It is easy to see why they call themselves the boating capital of North America. We spent 10 days in Annapolis, 6 of them on a mooring ball.  Land activities occupied most of our stay. Thursday night was our reunion cocktail party and we had a chance to renew our friendship with Bob and Taffy Walker. At the dinner dance at the Calvert House on Saturday, we spent time with Mike Polanski, a classmate both at the academy and at the University of Michigan graduate school.

Friday, Erin and Roy arrived to join us and we watched the USNA parade with all its wonderful pagentry, including a marching bagpipe Scottish band and the spinaakered sloops sailing by in the background.Saturday was the Navy/Air Force football game with more military pagentry. Our seats were in the 3rd row of the end zone, where we were able to see Reggie Miller, the NBA Pacers star and an interview of the Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta. The game was a heart-breaker, with Navy coming back in the 4th quarter to tie the game, only to lose in overtime. Afterwards, we took Erin and Roy to a dinner at Harry Browne's restaurant, pricey, but fabulous seafood.

SUnday morning, niece Stacy and her friend, Will, joined us for brunch on the boat and a tour of the Naval Academy. Having family join us is one of the pleasures of travel.

We contemplated moving on Monday morning, but just outside the marina, with a perfect front row seat for the upcoming boat show was a free mooring ball (free as in vacant, the town charges $25 a night, but you get shower and laundry priveledges). The skies cleared at last. Glorious soft breeze and sunshine. During the next three days, we witnessed the amazing site of floating piers being erected, with boats streaming in the moment the last pice of each dock was secured. On one of the days, we visited the Annapolis State House, oldest in the nation, and for 9 months, the capitol of the US. Our friend, Sid Mohsberg, a University of Michigan classmate,  took us to dinner at the Annapolis Yacht Club, where they make the BEST crab soup ever, even bringing a small decanter of sherry for the final touch. Sid did a visit to the boat before dinner.

We attended the boat show on Thursday and Friday, buying a few toys and supplies for the boat. This is a picture of the dinghy dock, a real challenge to come and go each day, with dinghies 3 deep and the water closed off by logs to prevent anyone tying onto the boat show docks. Everyone tied with long lines and the trick was to push away as many boats in as many directions as possible to work your way loose. Dinghies were used freely as boarding bridges by all those attempting to reach the dock.

 Friday, at the boat show, we discovered good Texas friends, Lee and Donna White and entertained them on our boat the following morning.

Saturday afternoon, we met Navy friends Vern and Pauletta Peters for lunch at the unique "Chick and Ruth's Deli" in Annapolis, crab cakes the size of your fist!

The water traffic there is unbelievable. One evening at sunset, we watched the Naval Acadmy sloops, with blue and gold spinnakers flying, the return home of two separate racing fleets of small Laser type sailboats, dinghies zipping from boat to shore, a fake pirate ship motored past, mega-yachts floated into a marina, water taxis, and every form of boat under sail and power plied the waters, including kyaks and rowing skulls. Sitting on our mooring ball, we felt like a stalled car on the freeway.  All in all, Annapolis was a really fun place to be.

Baltimore!

The weather continued cloudy and windless as we chugged from Rhode River to Baltimore. Signs of the recession were evident as we passed 6 anchored ships just before crossing under the Bay Bridge, which joins the mainland to the Eastern Shore. Debris from Hurricane Irene had been floating past us for much of the time, but became a problem as we approached Baltimore. Pieces of docks, plastic, metal tubs and partially submerged trees floated all around us. We did lots of zig zagging and still managed to be alarmed by a thump under the boat as we missed spotting something.

We had anticipated a short stay in Baltimore, but were mesmerized by the changes which had occured in the past 20 years. The Inner Harbor pulses with life and activity. We stayed three days and discovered on the thirs day that we could have done it all for free rather than the $2 per foot fee, charged by the marina. There is a public anchorage, in front of the Coast Guard Lightship museum. Baltimore deserves two thumbs up for its renewal of their city's heart, the waterway. We took advantage of the first sunshine we'd seen in over a week to walk up Federal Hill to the park and look below at our marina and the harbor.

The Inner Harbor is surrounded by brick walkways, jogging paths, a volleyball pit with 7 courts and nightly games, museums, stores, restaurants, and marinas, all served by a fleet of buzzing water taxis. For $10 you can buy a pass and ride all day.  We walked most places, but on the third day, rode out to the inspiring Fort McHemry, home of the Star Spangled Banner and the defense of Baltimore in the war of 1812.We also visite all four historical boats anchored in the harbor itself and walked and dined in the Fells point area, which still has streets looking much as they did in the 1700s.....if you discount the cars. We walked one evening in the spitting rain for tapas at happy hour overlooking the wooden ship Constellation. Nights in the city aboard the boat were a treat A nice visit and one we would repeat.

Rhode River and the Annapolis Gam

We arrived on a Thursday night for our first meeting of the SSCA, the Seven Seas Cruising Association. The Rhode River, part of the West River, is a popular spot and often houses crowds from Annapolis and Baltimore on summer weekends. The anchorage includeas a huge pond-like area, fully protected from winds and waves on the bay. There are three islands there, one which is now under water, but pretty clearly marked by bouys. About 45 boats were anchored there with room for another 45. The actual gam, a gathering of boats and boaters, took place at Camp Lett, a YMCA camp on the shore. The event exceeded our expectations with 200 attendees and really informative lectures on electronics, cruising the Chesapeake, cruising cheaper (Rick liked that one), interpreting marine weather, and several travelogue sessions.  We had a chance to listen to Lin and Larry Pardey, world famous cruisers, as they shared  their amazing adventures about being boarded by 5 Arabs with machine guns and rounding Cape Horn in their 28 foot sailboat, which survived the hurricane force winds they encountered.

The adventure on the Red Sea was particularly funny. After going through the canal, Lin and Larry anchored near shore. Five Arabs boarded the boat, demanding their passports. Lin and Larry didn't think they were official and were reluctant to release their passports, so Lin scrambled below and filled some papers with signatures and postage stamps from all the countries thay had visited. No one boarding could read English, and they seemed satisfied with the stamps and started to return to shore. By this time, the sun had set, and the wind was howling. The Arabs were unable to row their small boat back to shore. After almost an hour, they seemed exhausted and in danger of being pushed out to sea. A fishing boat anchored near by and the Arabs tried signalling to it......by shooting their machine guns. This terrified the fishermen, who pulled anchor and sped away. Finally, Lin and Larry threw them a line and pulled them back to the boat, but before allowing them on board, Lin insisted that they put their maching guns in a garbage bag, which was stored safely below. The five Arabs spent the night curled up on the deck of their 28 foot boat. Lin spent the night hoping they didn't realize that down below thwm sat a Jewish girl holding their machine guns in a garbage bag.

St Michaels via San Domingo Creek

In mid-September, we returned to Wind Dancer and were once again motoring on the Chesapeake. No wind from the Solomons to San Domingo Creek. No wind, but plenty of clouds. Still, meandering past low bushy islands and ancient brick lighthouses has its charm. The channel through the Choptank River, into Brod Creek and finally San Domingo is full of twists and turns and switchbacks, but easy to follow. Oystermen and crabbers line the way in the early hours of the day, hauling thewir catch into their unique, shsallow draft, broad backed boats. We found a lovely isolated cove about a mile  from the creek's end in the town of St. Michaels. The depth in most of the cove was 7 feet .

Dusk was lovely with beautiful reflective waters and a few elegant, but unoccupied homes ashore. We heard that Dick Cheney has a house on the creek. The following morning, we roide the dinghy to a public dock on the back side of St. Michaels. A few boats were permanently tied there and one other dinghy, so we climbed up and walked into town via Chew Street. St. Michaels is a "destination "spot on the Chesapeake. Everyone says not to miss it.We weren't disappointed., quaint town, lovely old church, interesting stores, museums, and restaurants. We spent most of our time at the maritime museum, which housed all sorts of beeautifully restaored wooden boats, a lighthouse, and other buildings, including the cottage owned by Frederich Douglas' sister. Other buildings tracked the history of the Chesapeake Bay. We also enjoyed wonderful crab cakes at a local restaurant.