We left Baltimore on Tuesday the 20th bound for an
anchorage on the Magothy River given the forecasted cooler weather (finally!!). It was only a 27 mile trip so we did not get
started till a little after noon. We
anchored around the back of Gibson Island at an anchorage known as the Horse
Farm. There were many rocks along the shore as a “fence” for the horses. Sorry picture was quite far across the
anchorage so we did not include it. It
was a beautiful anchorage with only 5 boats there. The bats were out working the insect
population and we were not really an issue.
A very nice night on the hook here.
Waiting on the grilled food.
We anchored across the river from the city marina in Chestertown.
Lots of
activity on the river with people practicing sculling, sailing small boats
(with an apparent personal challenge of one of them to see how close he could
get to our boat) and crabbing right next to us.
Here is the local boat Sultana taking out a group.
Only a few crabbers in the mornings creating some
small wakes. There was construction on
the local drawbridge every night which created some construction related noise
but we were far enough away that it was mostly white noise for us. It is cooling down nights which makes
anchoring out so nice…windows and hatches open and only some light bow slap
from the ripples at night. We had one night with one the most beautiful colorful
sunsets we have seen yet on this trip!
A short video of the sunset that better shows the
colors.
https://youtu.be/fNZEYg5a740
We decided to stay three days here as it is such a nice
historic town, groceries a mile and a third away, friendly people and a nice
anchorage with cool evening temperatures.
The walk to the grocery store was really nice as we wound our way
through the Washington College campus, a really nice school it appears. Julie thinks people were looking at us as
parents delivering groceries to a student as we walked through campus with four
bags of groceries!
We did have to rely on Nancy and Carey (Tug LeeLoo) for
dinghy service as our outboard almost completely quit running now. Hoping the dinghy will stay running all the
way back from the grocery run.
Note Tom paddling the dinghy back to the boat…
Thanks so much for the taxi service Nancy and
Carey!! We will have to get in the que
somewhere to get it repaired as it is a necessity when anchoring out.
Friday afternoon a couple from Anacortes WA, Jim and
Peg aboard HAVN dinghyed over to say hello.
They too live aboard and sold their dirt home, bought a boat in Fort
Lauderdale and are cruising some new territory. 
On Friday night the town had a River Fest celebration
with a band, food, beverages and other activities.
We dinghyed over (thanks Carey and Nancy!!)
to watch the “Illumination” of a large peacock which was constructed by
Washington College science and art students.
The band played some nice tunes including “Moondance” and “The Low Spark
of High Heeled Boys” and did a great job on them both before the lighting. Yes, the crowd was largely our age….
The peacock before being opened and illuminated fully
Here is the peacock all lit up after we returned from
our dinner at The Kitchen, an old hotel restaurant which had some really good
lamb shank. Pretty neat!
By the way, the Kitchen restaurant was voted Best of
the Eastern Shore for gluten free options.
While at anchor we were noticing a “clunk” every few
minutes as things quieted down and we were trying to go to sleep. First night we never figured it out and
thought it may have been noise from the bridge construction. The next night I thought about the wash down
pump which I had left on since the last anchorage. Turned off the pump and no
more noise. The valve to limit pressure
on the faucet must have been cycling. Note
to self for future….
There were other activities scheduled for Saturday as
well but we all decided to move on to an anchorage on the Wye River. We pulled anchor in 15-20 knot gusts as a
cold front was passing on Saturday. We
have learned that using our “marriage savers” for anchor retrieval is good
too. Julie operates the boat and I use
the wash down hose and give her directions for moving the boat, operating the
windlass, etc That way I can concentrate
on getting all the Chesapeake mud off the chain before it enters the rode
locker without having to rely on hand signals.
We keep learning and improving our techniques! We had to be very careful
of the crab pots along our boat as we maneuvered to retrieve the anchor but all
went well.
The waves on the trip were mostly behind us so not an
issue although there were small craft warnings posted. We had to traverse Kent Narrows, an area
noted on Active Captain as narrow, shallow, shoaled and with a strong tidal current. It was all of those and we got to add to that
equation, waves and wind on our beam.
But not an issue, 5 feet or more all the way in, although the electronic
charts were not accurate as temporary buoys marked the channel around the
shoaling.
A short video of the Narrows.
Called the Kent Narrows Bridge tender as we were right
on time for the noon opening.
Communicated with the sail boat which was up current to confirm he would
pass through the narrow bridge first. Love it when a sailboat actually has
their radio on! There were so many on
the ICW that never responded to our calls to arrange a "slow pass".
Passed through Shaw Bay, where we dinghyed to the raft
off a couple weeks ago, and went upstream a mile or so on the Wye River to a
beautiful anchorage. We saw osprey, blue heron, turkey vultures, geese and
ducks in our anchorage. Crabbers were working the mouth of the bay in which we
anchored and it was fun to watch them work. We had a great steak dinner aboard
with Nancy and Carey. A few nice homes
were across the river, the Milky Way was visible at night, geese flew out at
first light on an early morning flight…what a great spot. 
Note the osprey in the upper portion of this photo.
A little bird watching.
This cooler weather is just perfect for anchoring
out. We had a wonderful stretch of five
days on the hook. Nice, just what we had
hoped for to explore the Chesapeake. Another little flame up as we await dinner at anchor rafted with Tug LeeLoo.
But boat repairs call…an inoperable dinghy outboard and
anchoring out just don’t mix. We left on
Sunday morning for Annapolis at Bert Jabin’s Yacht Yard and the repairs for the
holding tank and outboard scheduled for Monday morning. The marina is not a
transient marina although the facilities are quite nice. There is a lot of activity here as every
conceivable boat repair can be made by one of the trades represented here.
Sunday traffic along the way. First lots of sailboats, then a large power
boat which is 124’ and moving at 23.5 MPH according to AIS (sorry I forgot to
write down the name). Yes, the wake was
like 6 feet….
We caught up to Kenny and Kathy aboard No Zip Code here.
We traveled with them on the rivers off
and on from Ottawa, IL and hadn’t seen them since Orange Beach last November. They have decided on a change of lifestyle
after cruising for over 10 years and their boat will be included with other
boats offered for sale at Trawler Fest at Kent Island the end of this week. They had a car so they drove us to The Boatyard
Restaurant where Carey and Nancy met us for dinner one evening. We had some nice visits with Kenny and Kathy
and Carey and Nancy during our stay here.
We bid them best wishes and said goodbye on Tuesday when they took their
boat to the show.
We worked through the repairs and the holding tank
odor is hopefully gone (rebuilt macerator system) and the outboard repair is
underway (rebuilding carburetors). The
tech drained bad gas (darn ethanol phase separation) and then tried to quickly
clean and tune carbs to no avail. So
rebuild kits were ordered overnight and the carb pieces are in an ultrasonic
cleaner, but unfortunately, this is holding us up and Tug LeeLoo went on
ahead. We will try to catch up with them
in a few days.
Here is Tom the project manager….
We are getting quite a bit of rain the last couple
days but we have been able to walk to the Giant Supermarket (about a mile away),
West Marine and other stores to pick up a few things. While at Giant, Julie thought
a person looked very familiar. After getting an aisle or so away, she
remembered. So we walked over and talked to Marie from the boat Felix who we went
to Flo’s Conch Bar in the Berry Islands and we last saw in Spanish Wells in the
Bahamas. She and Bruce have been in
Annapolis a while now and it was great to catch up with Marie! What a small world! They will be heading south this Fall as well,
so we may cross paths again.
We’re not sure how the technician is going to put carburetors
back on the dinghy in the pouring rain today…we’ll post again once we move
south on the Chesapeake which may be Saturday looking at the wind and waves
report. The rain coming down….
We walked to the library 1.5 miles between rain showers to post this. No Wi-Fi at the marina and our data plan was quickly used up! Thanks for following our blog.
