DAY SEVEN - on to St. Michaels

On the last official sailing day of the trip we raised anchor at 7:20 and followed Slip Jig down Dividing Creek on our way to St. Michaels.

The wind was great out on the Wye River, I think John Welsford would have been proud to see a Navigator and a Pathfinder sailing along together in a nice breeze. Bruce took a lot of photos of Kevin's boat, it looked great in the morning light.

Kevin zipped around behind us and moved up forward, Slip Jig is a very quick and nimble boat. Kevin certainly knows how to sail her.

And Kevin shot some photos and even some video of Spartina. That is Spartina below, one of the nicer photos I have seen of her under sail. I swear I am on the boat somewhere, must have been ducking down to pull out some gear. But it does look like Bruce is sailing her single handed.

(I took the tiller first thing that morning. I decided to follow Kevin as I figured he had local knowledge of the water we sailed over. I did keep an eye on our gps and compared our path to the day before. We were essentially backtracking, but this time we were much closer to the shallow side of the river. Kevin made a sudden turn ahead of me and headed out into what I could see on the gps as the deeper water of the channel. As I looked at the gps I noticed our position on the chart was over land! But we were having no problems. So I say to Steve, "I guess these charts are old as we are sailing over land". I think this is really funny. As I handed him the gps so he could see we hit bottom. Now I know why Kevin made the sharp turn. We were stuck. Steve couldn't raise the center board. So we raised the rudder and let the wind push the boat off to the side so it was sitting flatter. That allowed him to raise the center board and we were off again. Kevin had waited for us to catch up and when we told him we had grounded he told us he had, too. I vowed not to doubt the gps in the future.)

Kevin led the way up the Miles River into St. Michaels and pointed out a good spot to tie up at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. We straightened things up on Spartina and then borrowed Kevin's car (thanks! saved us a bunch on a rental) to drive to Crisfield to get my jeep and the trailer. By the time we got back to the museum grounds oysters were being served, both raw and roasted.

And of course steamed crabs. Not much better place to have steamed crabs than St. Michaels. Spicy and hot, they made for a great afternoon snack.

We had planned on staying on the boat that night, but rain was hovering around and a southeast wind was rocking Spartina in her slip. So where could we stay that night? In our bivy's in the park? In our sleeping bags in back of the jeep? We decided to discuss it over a beer in one of the pricey restaurants in St. Michaels. We came to no clear decision. But as we walked back to the museum I turned around to see Bruce standing motionless on the sidewalk, looking up as if he saw a vision in the sky. I'll let him explain......

(We had originally thought we would spend the night on Spartina. But it was still blowing and lots of wave action at the slip and out where we could anchor. I wasn't looking forward to spending a night rolling around. Steve had tried to find us a room in St. Michaels way before we started the trip but everything was sold out due to the boat festival. Bummer. I did suggest we sleep in the bivys or maybe in the back of the jeep. After all the bivies would keep us dry even if it rained. We discussed the options, I love options, but came to no decision. Steve said we should go and have a beer and not to worry, everything would work out. He is always saying that, just ask his family. So off we went for a brew and an appetizer. After we consumed our mini feast we decided to walk around town and check out some of the shops. We wanted to find some beer for Kevin to thank him for letting us use his car. We really appreciated the kindness. We found some beer and headed back to the festival. As we walked along we noted some of the features of the restored fine old buildings. One was an old inn. As we stood there looking at the architecture, I looked up and saw a most remarkable sign. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a sign for the inn and it said, Vacancy. Hallelujah. Steve just might be right, things would work out. I grabbed Steve and made a bee-line for the office. So in we walked, two unshaven, sorta disheveled men with no luggage, carrying a 12 pack of beer and looking for a room for the night. I inquired if I had seen the sign correctly. "Yes," said the receptionist as she looked at us with raised eyebrows. I joked that I would trade her the beer for the room. She laughed. I explained we had just sailed in to attend the festival and she said she had only one room and that it was just the perfect room for us. (a last minute cancellation) It was called the Captain's Quarters. It was a great room. I slapped Steve on the back and said, "you were right". After negotiating the room rate we checked in. We then headed back for the jeep so we could unload all our gear. Then it was off to dinner to try the local crabcakes. What a way to cap off a great trip.)

(By the way, we left the beer in Kevin's tent before we headed off to dinner. I saw him the next day and he told me he had had trouble sleeping. I asked him why and he said with a smile that he had hard cylinder shaped lumps under his pillow. Go figure.)

Distance - 8.26 nm

Max Speed - 5.6 kts

Ave Speed - 3.5 kts

Moving time - 2 hours 22 minutes

For the entire trip......

Distance - 136 nm (less than we expected, but the wind was with us the entire way, every mile sailed was a mile made good, virtually no tacking)

Max Speed - 8.6 kts (somewhere off of Hoopers Island on day two, surfing down the front of a wave)

Ave Speed - 3.7 kts (pretty good when we consider that our goal is an average of 3.0 knots)

Moving Time - 36 hours 24 min (of pure adventure, excitement and fun)

So that is it. We had a great time on the trip, from the moment we started planning back in June until we reached out and grabbed the dock in St. Michaels. Thanks for taking time to read the blog, we hope you enjoyed it. We'll be happy if maybe you learned something from either our successes or failures on this trip.

This trip was once again confirmation that John Welsford designs some great boats. And it was also confirmation that a few decades of good friendship makes for the best sailing partner. Thanks Bruce for being part of the adventure!

(What helped make this such a fantastic trip was Steve's great planning and preparation plus his exceptional sailing skills and knowledge. He kept us safe and and got us to journey's end with big smiles on our faces. I really enjoyed all the marvelous people we met along the way. They added so much to the fun. Great job Captain!!)

We'll do some posts on the festival itself, the final voting on our crabcake challenge and a nice day off in Rock Hall, plus some notes about what we did right, what we did wrong and what we'll change next time, once we catch up.

See you on the water.

steve