day six - windless to Knapp Narrows

Up a little after 6:00, no wind, cool and grey.  Over the past four nights I've slept on a 44' ketch, in a hotel room, on a porch and on Spartina.  The ketch and the hotel room were very comfortable, the porch not so much.  Sleeping on Spartina I felt as if I was sleeping at home.

I stow the sleeping gear and boom tent, then reorganize Spartina for cruising.  At 7:40 I push off from the dock and motor out on to Fogg Cove, just a few people out including Barry who is down at the end of a pier with his video camera.  I do not raise sail, there is no wind and I am going only a short distance out onto the Miles River to Kantala.  Michael is working away in the galley as Sheila and I tie up Spartina.  Down in the cabin I am served up with a glass bowl - never expected to see a glass bowl on an ocean cruising boat - full of steamy rich porridge, a real treat.  Never have I started a cruising day with a better meal and company.  There is no rush to leave and we sit and talk in the cabin until Sheila says "Is that rain?"  We climb outside to find the splashing noise is not rain, but instead a feeding frenzy of stripers just a few yards from Kantala.  I hop down to Spartina and make a few casts with the spinning rod, bringing in just a tiny striper before the school moved away.

Before casting off from Kantala Michael makes a phone call to check on the weather.  There is a hurricane to the south, very possibly headed to Chesapeake Bay.  We've got a few days yet, and of course there is always the uncertainty of a storm's path.  But we each make our plans with the storm in mind, Michael and Sheila checking with friends in the area for a good hurricane hole to protect Kanatala, and myself planning on being within a day's sail of Cambridge should I need to get off the water.  I thank my new friends for their hospitality - from Cuban beer to Mikey's porridge and a comfortable place to sleep on a stormy night - and cast off, each of us wishing the other a safe trip.

Under power north on the Miles River I see Doug's Cornish Shrimper slipping out of Fogg Cove, they have the main up but are under power too.  At Deepwater Point there is the hint of a breeze and I raise all three sails, motor sailing but really just motoring down the river.  

I round Tilghman Point at 11:00, the Shrimper not far behind but taking a wider path around the shoals than Spartina.  I finally admit to myself that there is absolutely no wind and bring down the sails.  I stay close to the shoreline while the Shrimper stays a few hundred yards farther out in the bay, the Shrimper's diesel engine slowly moving her ahead of Spartina.  A low overcast hangs over the bay with some clearing to the south. 

At noon a light north wind and sails up, motor sailing once again.  A thick cloud of seagulls hovers over schooling stripers to the northwest.  The wind comes and goes, a chill hangs in the air.  Nearing the entrance to Knapp Narrows the clouds begin to break up and the warm sunshine feels good.  It's still early in the day, the 1:00 nfl games are just getting under way, I consider going through the narrows to Dun Cove where I have anchored before.  But Tilghman Island, a favorite spot that holds onto the old Chesapeake Bay character, sounds like a great place to relax.  I tie at Knapp Narrows floating pier, walk a hundred yards or so to the marina/hotel office and pay my $2 per foot for an overnight stay.  

I spend a quiet afternoon - honestly relieved to be away from the crowd in St. Michaels - and walk down the Tilghman Island Country Store where I pick up a few items.  Then I sit by the pool at the hotel, catching up on my logbook and checking email.  Then back to the pier late afternoon as the current is running through the narrows and the stripers are out to feed.  I cast a lure and catch five or six small fish, shaking them all off the hook for another day.  Nearby a woman walks up and down each of the piers at the marina with a bucket and a net, reaching down once in a while to snag a blue crab on the pilings.    

My favorite restaurant/tiki bar, Marker 5, just on the other side of the marina is closed with a gas line problem.  So instead I walk over the bridge to Character's Bridge Restaurant.  Their evening entree's are a little out of my price range so I settle for an appetizer of scallops, a caesar salad and a bottle of beer.  Perfect!

Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival - a blur

It was all a blur.  Boats, lots of boats.  Friends, lots of friends.  And lots of new friends with names I could not remember (I'm terrible at that).  

With the gusting wind and rolling waves almost a crash landing at the docks for Spartina, saved by three sailors who ran out to the docks to help with the lines.  Greetings from Kristen and then meeting up with Barry and daughter, then a delightful dinner with them followed by a wonderful sleep in that somehow-paid-for but unused hotel room, the hot shower feeling great after a couple stormy days on the water.  Friday has a free breakfast at the hotel in a room crowded with folks headed to the small craft festival and somebody says "There's a lot of energy at the museum these days," and they are right.  Back at the waterfront more friends arriving, friends from North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York.  Some I've met before, some I've met by email.  A little clash of my worlds.  That evening I carry a stack of spice covered steamed crabs and a wooden mallet over to an empty table but I'm pulled away by Harris and his friends from the Chesapeake Float to join their feast, what a treat.  And then Barry's night at the movies, Spartina even making an appearance on the big screen in a couple of the videos.  And Barry's got this friend there with an assortment of whiskies and fine glasses and I spend some time hanging around that table though I don't think I was ever invited.  No free hotel room for the night and the waterfront is still being battered by the waves so I grab the sleeping bag and find a porch at a museum building for the night.

Saturday morning wind and waves beginning to slack and I look out over the Miles River to see Kantala anchored out, Michael and Sheila having enjoyed the protection of the Wye River for an extra day or two.  Still breezy enough for a double-reefed main I sail out to the ketch, arriving just as their world cruising friends Richard and Jessica arrive by inflatable boat.  Later on shore I meet up with Rock Hall friends MaryLou and Fred, Michael and Sheila coming in by dinghy to join us for a fine lunch - fish and chips made with fine local rockfish for me - at the Crab Claw.  

I head off to check on Spartina at the docks but the weather is looking better so I head out for a sail while my lunch companions explore the museum.  Motoring in to one of the piers Navigator sailor Kevin B. hops on board for his first ever Pathfinder sail and the wind has fallen to the point that I've shaken out all the reefs, Kevin at the tiller and me relaxing up forward.  Back on shore I meet Michael and Sheila for a walk into town so they can pick up some food supplies for Kantala.  They head off in the dinghy and I walk to the awards banquet under the big tent (no I didn't win anything but then again I didn't compete).  Great dinner where Emily's friend shows me how to open a bottle of beer using a second bottle of beer and his heel, don't ask me to explain but I don't think anybody was injured by the bottle cap flying off into the crowd.  And the beer was cold.  Pleased to receive an invite for breakfast in the morning, I say goodbye to my friends.  Waterfront finally calmed down and for the first time in three nights I climb on board Spartina, slip into the sleeping bag and I feel like I'm at home.     

day five - hippie pancakes and wind on the beam

Awake just after 7:00 and I get the feeling Michael and Sheila have been awake in the aft cabin for a while, giving me some extra time to sleep.  Heavy rains over night, the wind still gusting strongly out of the east.  Spartina is rafted along the port side of Kantala and I step down to the aft deck and slip under the boom tent.  I am pleased to find a very dry cockpit, the boom tent working very well and a bit of line wrapped around the mast above the boom tent wicking away the rivulets of water that normally run down the mast through the mast hole and under the foredeck.  I am also pleased to have spent a very comfortable night sleeping aboard the 44' ferro cement ketch.

Breakfast, Sheila tells me, will be hippie pancakes, pancakes with anything else she can find - fruit, nuts or whatever - thrown into the batter.  She serves up a platter and Michael and I dig in, topping them with maple syrup they had picked up in Canada and honey they had bought at a farmer's market while anchored in Portsmouth's Craford Bay.  An excellent breakfast and we linger for a while talking about our trips and our boats and how nice it is to ride out the rough weather in comfort.  

I am in no rush to leave Kantala, the wind still whipping out of the east.  St. Michaels is due south, about five miles away.  By 10:30 the boom tent is down and I've rigged Spartina for sailing.  The noise of the wind is so loud that I hesitate to cast off, but finally do so raising just the mizzen and jib. Falling aft of Kantala I wave goodbye to my friends, noticing that all the noise of the wind was really Kantala's wind generator spinning and the lines of the ketch rig humming in the gusts.  Blowing 20 or 25 mph, the wind wasn't so bad after all.  Out on the Wye River the wind tugs at the jib and we make four and then five knots. 

Just to the south the Wye opens to Shaw Bay and with no tree line to protect us we make six knots at times.  At Wyetown Point we are out of the Wye and now on the Miles River.  I look back and through the mist I see Kantala's white hull against dark trees.  Mostly five knots, sometimes less and sometimes more, we make a steady pace towards St. Michaels.  Looking back once more Kantala is no longer in sight, looking forward I can see the lighthouse at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum just beyond Deepwater Point.  I am the only boat out on the river.     

At marker "4M" we fall off and head toward St. Michaels.   Outside of Fogg Cove I round up to bring down the jib, starting up the outboard before going forward.  The steep chop across the river has become waves and Spartina's bow bounces up and down.  I free the jib halyard and jerk the sail down.  The wind jerks the sail right back up.  I try and again and again, still the wind pulls the jib right back up.  I grab the short piece of bright red line wrapped around the mast for this very purpose, clipping it to my harness, and kneel out on the foredeck.  With one hand grasping the mast I use the other to pull down the jib and then quickly tie the sail to the bow sprit.  Mizzen down easily, we motor to the dock where three sailors help me get tied up in the very rough harbor.

I clean up Spartina, charge some batteries and then start running into friends.  Kristen comes off a boat where she had been helping pull a sailboat out to the marsh (the east wind is tough on a waterfront exposed to the east)  and gives me a hug.  Barry shows up with his daughter and an invite later that evening for dinner.  I check on Spartina which is pitching fore and after in the wind and the waves, planning on sleeping on a porch instead of the rocking boat.  Then Barry shows up again saying "I've got a paid-for hotel that's going to be empty tonight" and I wonder how I've gotten to be so lucky.  At first I say no thanks, but when I see that Spartina is riding safely at the dock I take him up on the offer.

day four - shelter from the storm

Up at 6:40, I can hear thunder rumbling to the southwest.  I check the forecast on my phone and see that I will be spending the next couple of days in the center of a storm.  Glassy calm in the cove but I can see the tree tops whipping in the wind.  Sail off anchor with two reefs tucked in the main.  Around the corner I'm exposed to a stiff wind.  Flocks of geese fly across Warehouse Creek.  

We reach Cox Creek by 8:00 and turn towards Eastern Bay.  Passing two deadrises working trot lines the thunder increases.  Approaching Eastern Bay dark clouds slide in from the south and the bay disappears in a heavy rainstorm.  I round up and sail back up Cox Creek, finding shelter in a little cove across from the mouth of Warehouse Creek.  Nothing to do but wait out the weather, hoping the storm passes so I can cut across Eastern Bay and the Miles River.  More thunder and a few flashes of lightning downriver.

Under sail at 9:45, double reefed, still stormy but some clearing to the southeast.  Sun makes a brief appearance at the mouth of Cox Creek as I give a wide berth to the shoals at Turkey Point.  Tilghman Point visible ahead, sailing close on the wind I might make it on a single tack.  Very choppy on Eastern Bay, making 4 kts then dropping down to 2.5 as waves roll through in batches of three or four.  

Most the way across the bay the sun comes out and the water ahead glistens.  Spartina heels and spray jumps out to starboard, Tilghman Point off the bow.  Great sailing.  Approaching the point a large cruising boat angles towards Spartina, four men in the cockpit with one shouting "What are you doing out in this weather?"  I shout back the weather is perfect, why wouldn't I want to be out?"  

The wind falls just as we make Tilghman Point and we need to make a tack to round the shallows into the Miles River.  Once around the point I shake out the reefs and full sail to the Wye River.

Birds are feeding all over the river and there would be some great fishing I suspect.  But unsure of the weather window I make towards the Wye.  We reach the entrance channel and follow the river north with the trees buffeting the east wind.  With a forecast of 2-3 inches of rain overnight and winds out of the east gusting to 35 mph I stay north on the river looking for a nice little cove to hide in.  

I round up just south of Drum Point, then make a few tacks into a cove where the water is glassy calm. Anchor down and with a little bit of sunshine I spread out the foul weather gear to dry.  The cove is so well protected by trees and a bluff that Spartina drifts around in lazy circles.   

As evening approaches I tuck away the gear, clean up Spartina and set up the boom tent for the stormy night.  Getting ready to fix dinner I check my phone and find a text so unexpected I had to read it twice.  

Kantala, Michael and Sheila, cruisers that I had met earlier in the summer on Craford Bay.  Twenty eight years earlier they had left Vancouver and sailed across the Pacific, as Sheila says, stopping at a few places islands along the way.  Rounding Africa and crossing the Atlantic, they were on their way to Nova Scotia when I met them.  And after a sail that weekend on Spartina we had met my friends MaryLou and Fred for lunch in Portsmouth when the talk about the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival in St. Michaels had come up.  Michael and Sheila had decided to check out the festival.   

I text back "Small world, I'm a few miles north of St. Michaels too," and gave them my location near Drum Point.  They reply "We're headed towards Drum Pt now."  

About 40 minutes later Kantala comes into view.  She rounds up to anchor out in deeper water and I raise Spartina's anchor to fall back to them

We raft Spartina up alongside the 44' ferrocement ketch and soon I'm on board, we're drinking Cuban beer and talking about our sailings since we had last met on Craford Bay.  I am invited to stay for dinner and we enjoy that with a warm bottle of white wine, talking as if we have known each other for years.  Dark and windy, Michael and Sheila invite me to spend the night on board.  

Maybe it is something about boats and bad weather, but it seems like you can make friends fast out on the water.

golden

from friends

Seeing the Virginia on the river was like seeing an old friend, and on board were a lot of old (and some new) friends.  Lots of photos were taken, here are a couple of them.

like seeing an old friend

on the river this morning

betsy town

day three - calm before the storm

Slept in until 7:00.  Rain overnight, sometimes light and sometimes a steady drizzle.  The boom tent worked very well, kept the boat dry and I slept comfortably in the sleeping bag and bivy.  I see two deadrises working trot lines on the creek as I tuck away the sleeping gear and tent.  As we sail off anchor at 7:30 one of the boats, Double Trouble, turns to put out a trot line across my anchorage.  The second boat, Buzz Buster, runs up alongside to take a look at Spartina.  I ask the waterman if I had been in their way.  "Not at all," he says.  "Never seen one like that," he smiles, pointing, towards Spartina.  He told me to be safe, I wished him a good day, and the waterman went back to work.

The Chester River is very quiet.  Low overcast, glassy water and a light breeze.  We make slow tacks with uncertain progress across the wide river towards Gray's Inn Creek.  I check in with friends Fred and MaryLou and we talk about getting together near their Rock Hall home.  Light rain, light wind.  Light rain moves on, light wind stays.  I check the weather forecast to hear storms forecast for tomorrow.  I have a decision to make.  Continue on across the river, spend the night there and come back through the Narrows in stormy conditions.  Or turn back now, get some lunch at the Narrows and find shelter off of Eastern Bay for the night.  I turn back to the Narrows.   

I motor sail back to the narrows, tie up to top of the gas can, then tie up across the water for lunch, the mizzen boom jutting beneath the bow of a large motor cruiser.  I am pleased to see that Harris Crab House has kept their price for a crab cake sandwich under $10, most waterfront spots want $15 to $18 these days.  The crab cake sandwich arrives, a tiny crab cake on an open biscuit.  So that's how they do it.  Good lunch so I can't complain.  

We make the 2:00 opening through the Kent Narrows Bridge, a gentlemanly bridge tender wishing me well.  Blue skies work their way through the clouds, not much wind to speak of but I raise full sail anyway.  A handful of head boats full of fishermen head back to the docks leaving rolling wakes on the calm water.  I wonder how many stripers are in the coolers.  We leave Parsons Island to port still under power.  A light wind crops up and finally we are under sail across Crab Alley Bay with Turkey Point in sight.  I sit in the shade of the mainsail - it is turning into a hot day - and try not to rock the boat as we ghost along at under 2 kts.   It is quiet save for the sounds of Spartina's hull and ospreys crying in the distance. 

I hear the drag on the trolling rod go off and reel in a just barely legal striper, one that is quickly returned to the water.  Gentle sailing at 1 kt.  The wind falters off Turkey Point then fills in again once around the point and on Cox Creek.

We sail north on Cox Creek for a little over a mile then branch off to the northwest on Warehouse Creek.  Just a few homes on the creek, mostly lined by marshes and trees.  The creek ends with three separate pools of calm water, each surrounded by tall trees.  I choose the cove to port, just trees and marsh and a small barn in sight, dropping the anchor in about four feet of water.

Dinner and reading, then checking the forecast to hear that storms are on the way for the next few days.  I relax and enjoy a beautiful evening.