Sailing the Chesapeake in September

Sunday morning:
It was a grey and gloomy ordeal crossing the Bay from Herrington Harbour in Tracy's Landing (20 miles south of Annapolis) to the Little Choptank River.  We went where the wind would let us sail.   And sail we did with 10-15 knots with a few gusts to 20.  It was a single reach and the wind was kind enough to let us sail  round the serious series of green marks that led the way to Fishing Creek. We swore we would not motor on our first day out and we did not. 

We thanked the sea gods that it didn't rain.  It didn't rain because we bought $420 worth of waterproof foul weather gear, complete with bib overalls.  Turned out to be just the insurance we needed.  If the sun had been out, it would have been a grand and glorious sail. 

Monday morning: 

The sun shown through the hatches.  We rose, stretched and I cooked us a farmer's breakfast.  We had decided to take advantage of the bright day and light wind to cross the bay going south to Solomon's Island at the mouth of the Patuxent River. Before we could leave we had to retrieve, so John, in proper crew glory, stepped on the windlass up button.  Nada, nothing.  Just a burping noise of gears rolling but not engaging.  He huffed, puffed and finally pulled the anchor up hand over hand.  Not too bad if the anchor isn't buried too deep or you don't have 15 feet of chain just before the anchor   (all of which is good protection when being at anchor).  He had both.  John thought he was going to have a heart attack when it was all over.  Getting old is a bitch.

Sail was excellent until the wind died half way down the Bay, so I fired up the iron Jenny (aka engine) and motored to Solomon's Island.  We took two nights at dock at a local marina, walked to what there is of a down town, and ate rock fish tacos. 

Tuesday morning:
John found that the windlass motor had disengaged from the gears and had fallen onto the interior panel in the V berth (aka pointy end).  The panel screws were stripped.  After several pictures and discussions with our boat engineer back in Harve d' Grace, we decided it required repair way beyond our skill sets so John will have to haul the anchor by hand for the rest of the trip.  He's resigned to the task.

Today we took advantage of the access to land to visit the Calvert Marine Museum. If you like boats, boat building, crabbing and oystering, and fossil hunting, this is the museum for you.  Full of volunteers always willing to chat about their various projects, we wandered and listened to histories and tales.  We climbed the Drum Point light.  Put John's hip on resuscitator status, but he thought it was well worth it.  He was so excited that he came back to the boat, took two Ibuprofen and a long nap.  Oh, what a life in the slow lane.