Rock Hall — 09•13•21
I got up early and got prepped to head to Swan Creek. But, before heading out, Trouble needed a pumpout. Luckily Maryland Marina next to me had a free pumpout and water. The pumpout dock is small and I would be blocking the fairway, so I headed over early. No wind made docking easy. Hooked up the pumpout, but it didn’t seem to be working. I looked around for a switch and found one, but it still didn’t work. A local liveaboard came by to chat, he said he’d head up to the office and see if anyone was around to turn it on. It finally started to work. After the pumpout, I got underway. Getting into the middle river and dodging crab pots, I got the sails up and the engines off, and had a nice sail up to Swan Creek and anchored with no difficulties.
Magothy River — 09•14•21
Leaving Swan Creek, the wind was light, and a side trip to Rock Hall Inner Harbor was in order. I just motored in and looked around and swung Trouble around and headed back out. There is a free dock that looked interesting on a calm night.
The Magothy River has a lighthouse near the entrance. Passing by close was an option as the wind was light.
I dropped anchor in a back creek on The Magothy River, called by boats The Horse Farm as there is a horse farm on it. A few other cruisers showed up and dropped anchor. It was a quiet night after the water and jet skiers went home.
Chester River — 09•15•21
Heading up The Chester River was the plan for the day. The wind seemed to be picking up and full sails went up as Trouble bounded across the bay to the easter shore with The Bay Bridge on her starboard side. Great sailing all the way to where The Chester River makes a 180-degree turn. I dropped sails here as I like to have a little room to maneuver to make sure there is a clear spot to get the sails down.
The plan was to get partway up the river and pull into a creek off the river and drop anchor. I dropped the hook (anchor) in what looked like a good spot. But, the anchor would not set. It kept dragging when I’d back down on it. I moved and tried again. Trying multiple spots it would not grab. Moving way back a creek, out of most of the wind, I dropped the anchor and proceeded to let out a ton of chain. The bottom seemed to be goo of mud. Trouble got a quick hull cleaning as I was in the water seeing what the bottom was made of. This “Chester Goo” of a bottom really threw off my anchoring game. Trouble seemed good for the night and I had no problems on this very quiet back creek.
Chestertown — 09•16•21
Traveling up The Chester River to Chesterton is a scenic and interesting trek. I motored all the way up it, as the windy river would make it difficult to sail.
Anchoring in Chestertown I ran into the same “Chester Goo”. Knowing a little better how to anchor in it I was able to get a satisfactory anchor set.
Chestertown is a quaint old city with Washington College nearby. Brick-lined sidewalks with old homes make this town a very pleasant walking town. I found a nice coffee shop off the main street on a cloudy drizzly day.
I hung out and enjoyed Chestertown for a couple of days. Anchoring out in Chestertown has one small drawback and that is what I called the “Chestertown Dance”. When the tide changes and its wind against current, your boat will not sit nicely on anchor and would wake me up at night during the change and the boat would dance around its anchor.
Worton Creek — 09•18•21
Off to Worton Creek again. This time to meet up with EOS and her maiden voyage after the shaft work done last week in Middle River. The wind was light, so I motored all the way down the Chester River with the following current which helped. For the rest of the trip, the wind seemed to always be on the nose, so the sails never came out. The day started out foggy and cloudy, but by noon the sun was out and it was a great day just to be on the water. Everyone else seemed to think the same as people were getting their last days out on the Chesapeake before putting their boats away for the winter.
As I got to Worton Creek I could EOS at anchor already. The anchor was put down not too far off of EOS. I did see after I got my anchor set that the charts showed an “obstruction” right where I dropped my anchor. I did a quick look around and decided that that information might be old. That turned out to be not the case.
Still Pond — 09•19•21
That night I kept hearing slight bumps against the boat. I kept thinking that obstruction might still be here! The night was windless so I ignored it till morning. In the morning I looked around to boat and saw nothing, but occasionally did hear a bump now and then. EOS came over after breakfast and we hung out and did a quick fix on Trouble with the anchor chafing the trampoline. As we were doing that Pete noticed in his dinghy that his oars were hitting something in the water. The water is so murky you can’t see more than a few inches through the water. We did notice that by poking in the water that Trouble was over about 3 or 4 pilings a few feet under the water.
Deciding that moving Trouble out of this area would be prudent. I tried to just have the anchor pull me away but the boat kept getting hung up on the pilings. We worked on moving Trouble around to get off the pilings. It took a bit and the anchor chain even pulled up a huge piling that must have been lying on the ground and got tangled in the anchor chain. After finally getting that off the chain and moving Trouble out of that area and re-anchored in a safe spot. I took a few moments to get Trouble ready to sail off after EOS.
EOS sailing off their anchorage like pros. I had to try to do the same with Trouble, but I’ve never done it before. I almost got off without help. but I did need to use the motors for a second to get Trouble pointed away from the wind.
As we sailed out Worton Creek, we had lots of crab pots to dodge. I had a hard time missing them as the wind was light and there was a current pulling at me also. I then seemed to hit one and it disappear below Trouble. Then I hit two others both getting pulled down under the boat, but I didn’t see them pop up behind me. Thinking I was sure I was dragging a few crab pots around I just kept sailing to get clear of them all.
Saying goodbye to EOS on the radio and then focusing on heading to my next anchorage which was a short distance away. I ended up pulling the sails down and only starting the starboard engine as I hit the crab pots on the port side. I motored all the way to Still Pond on just the one motor and got the anchor down and set with the one motor. Still Pond was pretty crowded but I found a pretty good spot. After I shut the engine down I did dive in the water and check the rudders and sail drives as I was sure I must have grabbed a pot or two. But, I found nothing, and both rudders, daggerboards, and sail drive were free of any pots. I have no idea what happened to those crab pots I hit. It was an uneventful night on anchor.