day eight - south to Worton Creek

Calm overnight, we push off from the dock at Sail Associates just after 7:00.  Terns dive into the glassy water between the piers.  Under power down the river, not a breath of wind.  Geese fly out of the mist hanging over narrow creeks feeding into the Sassafras.  A cormorant surfaces with a eel struggling in its beak, the eel slipping away.  Wind at 8:00 passing red marker No. 8, all sails up and making 1.5 down the winding river.

More wind arrives and soon making 4.5 passing Money Creek and rounding the spit of land that juts out into the river.  On the wide part of the river the wind is cooler and stronger, 5.1 knots. I layer on an extra shirt over the two shirts I'm already wearing.  

Passing Howell Point out onto the Bay the wind drops.  Motor sailing and then under power alone.  I round up to cast to feeding birds but the school of fish that had attracted the birds scatters.  No wind and the day quickly becomes hot.  

A light south wind at Worton Point at noon, sails up with two eagles flying from the trees above the red cliffs on shore.  

A steady sail into the Worton Creek entrance, the deadrise "At Last" that I had crossed paths with a couple days earlier runs in beside me with the day's catch.  The entrance is narrower than I expected.  Inside the creek I turn south past a marina.  Two women working on a sailboat look up and wave.  I ask them if there is a store nearby where I could get some fresh fruit.  They tell me the local store closed but they would glad to drive me to town.  The town, I'm guessing, is Chestertown.  I thank they for their offer, tell them I don't want to take them away from their work.  The marinas are to port, to starboard are more boats out in a mooring field.  I come about head north on Tims Creek, a few docks and homes along the eastern shore and trees on the opposite shore.  It is shallow, the centerboard touches bottom a few times.  I turn back to Worton Creek, sail past the marinas and through the moored boats,  dropping anchor up in the shallows that are marked at two feet on the chart but in reality five or six feet deep.

I listen to the forecast several times throughout the afternoon.  A "reinforcing cold front" will arrive in the early morning hours, winds forecast to be 20-25 miles out of the northwest, gusts to 30.  The NW wind will carry me south.  The challenge will be getting out of the entrance channel which faces northwest.  Dinner and then into the bivy before darkness, I want to get an early start in the morning.