Exploring the Chesapeake

After the boatshow was done, we decided we would spend some time moving around the Chesapeake a little. We will have at least two more weeks here before it is considered safe to travel south below Cape Hatteras into the Hurricane zone. The cape requires a weather window to pass because it is open ocean and there are not any good places to go to land if needed. The closest stop for us is Beafort, North Carolina. Other cruising families are heading south a little sooner, if they are on smaller boats, because they can fit in the ICW, but our mast is too high for several of the bridges in this area.

There are several small cities along the Chesapeake that are popular to visit. We started by going up the South River, just south of Annapolis for several days. This was in part because windy weather blew in, making the wide open anchorage in Annapolis too uncomfortable to stay in. But, it also gave us the opportunity to see new anchorages. The first one we stayed at, Harness creek, was right next to a park. It was very quite and secluded. We enjoyed the peace. And, we saw a snake swimming in the water as we entered the creek! Coming down from Annapolis in the wind meant that we had choppy waves to go through (but still nothing like the large waves we encountered coming out of Port Jefferson). Simon and Norah have developed a bit of a fear of waves since Port Jefferson. Even waves heights that they have been in before are making them nervous. I have found that children are funny this way. Sometimes you are not sure what exactly made them fearful of a situation (even they don’t understand it) but in this case, it is probably related to our experience in Port Jefferson. It is harder for them to understand the factors that had to come together to make those waves and I think us talking about windy conditions and chop makes them associated it with Port Jefferson. Anyway, if we have more days like this then they should start to get use to it again.

Once in the South River, we rented a car because we needed to go to Costoco to fill up our freezer with meat again. We have found that buying all our meat at Costco in large batches is much cheaper than buying it at the local grocery stores. So, we planned to go to Costco and then onto DC for a day at the International Spy Museum. However, as it turns out, the park that we dinghed up to, closed at dusk and we were pretty unlikely to get to Costco, the Spy Museum, and back to the boat to unload all our grocies before dusk. Then, we would be hooped because there would be no way to get the meat to the boat! So, before we left, we had to move Seasura further into South River to another anchorage with a dinghy dock that was open all the time. It was also quite protected farther up South River, but it wasn’t quite as secluded.

With our boat in a new anchorage, and our dinghy secured at a nearby marina (there were actually no dinghy docks but the local marina was willing to have us dinghy dock to any empty slip for small fee for $20), we headed into DC. The International Spy Museum was pretty cool. Each guest gets assigned a security card that is loaded with a secret identity and mission. As you pass through the museum, you update your mission and try out different spy skills. There were so many artifacts and stories about historical spies and their missions. There were also testimonials from former spies. I found it amazing how many of the spy techniques you hear about it in movies are actually used in real life. It is also sort of sad to think of how much disception there is in the world. If you are in DC, I would recommend this as one of the museums you check out.

That night when we returned to the dinghy dock we discovered that we accidently almost sunk our dinghy! The dock we had tied our dinghy up to was not a floating dock and was open underneath. So, when the tide went down the dinghy floated under the dock a little. Then, when the tide came back up, it was stuck under the dock and was pushed down enough that water started to seep over the back end and fill the dinghy. Luckily, we returned when the dinghy was 3/4 full of water and not fully sunk. It took some effort to release it from the dock before we bailed it out. Sorry to say, I didn’t take a picture of it. We are also very happy that are dinghy still works and that nothing from inside floated away.

The next day we kept the van one extra day to pick up electric scooters for the kids. Now that Kevin and I have them, the kids were itching to have something to ride themselves. They didn’t like being left on the boat while we ran errands. Especially when our mode of transportation was so fun. Plus, we had a generous donation from the grandparents to get the kids something fun. They love these things! And don’t worry, we got helmets for everyone as well. It is certainly a faster way to get around the smaller towns. I miss the walking a little but I know that the novelty will pass and we will do more walking again. For now, we have to figure out how to store these on the boat. They are certainly smaller than even folding bikes would be, but they still take up a fair amount of space. We are going to replace the removable flooring in the engine rooms and strap them down there. But for now, they are cluttering up our cockpit area again. It always seems that just when we declutter the boat, something more is brought on that gets in our way again.

When Sunday came around, we took advantage of the wind and sailed over to St. Michael’s. It is very quaint small town on the east coast of the Chesapeake. It has a street of shops and restaurants and a maritime museum. You can anchor either on the north shore or the south shore. The south shore takes longer to get into so tends to be quieter. This is what we did and it is a very beautiful, peaceful anchorage. The dinghy dock is not too far away either. Our sail over was actually pretty exciting. The wind was still blowing that day so we managed to sail almost all of it. There were times we had to turn on the motors for a short bits and we motored into the last few inlets. We put up our mainsail while we were at anchor in South River and unfurled our genoa while exiting the River. We had up to 25knot winds and even managed to get up to 11.7knots SOG (speed over ground, i.e. how fast we were traveling compared to land rather than water with it’s currents)! The waves were moderate so we had some rocking action but nothing that got the little kids too anxious. It was also sunny but cool and it made for a enjoyable day.

The day after arriving, we returned to our daily routine, doing schoolwork in the morning and then going to shore in the afternoon to stretch our legs. Some new friends of ours ended up sharing the anchorage with us and the kids enjoyed getting together with other kids. We got good use of our e-scooters by taking them to the Maritime museum two days in a row. The museum was actually pretty interesting. You have probably noticed that our family seems to really enjoy museums. This one had lots of information on oystering and clamming in the Chesapeake. Can you believe that oysters in the Chesapeake were three times bigger when they first started collecting them than they are today?! I find oysters okay but nothing I strive to eat, while Kevin enjoys them. But I can’t imagine eating one that is three times bigger! They had this funny sign in the museum. “Just think, somebody some time had to be the first person to open an oyster and think that it looked like something yummy to put in their mouth!” So true! They also have a lighthouse on the museum grounds that you can walk through and imagine what it was like to be a lighthouse keeper in the 1800’s.

We were going to leave today for Solomons but have decided to spend a few more days here. The kids like being close to the other kid boat, and we enjoy the easy dinghy access, quite anchorage, and bike paths and icecream shops that are easily accessible on shore. Now we just have to get ourselves going on some of our lingering boat jobs.