The Wye River and the "Secret Cove"
While in Solomon's, MD, we had met a couple on a Baba sailboat, which was built by the Ta Shing yard in Taiwan - the same yard which built the Mason 43. We speak briefly with them at the Calvert Maritime Museum, then go our own ways. Later, in Annapolis, they arrive a day after us and pick up a nearby mooring. Naturally, we row over and say "hi." Before you know it, they're inviting us to a Baba get-together. The rationale is simple: Masons were also built by Ta Shing, so there should not be a problem with us joining in. Although we are eager to get north, we decide to take a weekend foray up the Miles River with the Babas.
Heading over to the Eastern Shore, we call Bud and Leslie on Play Actor and they give us directions to their "secret cove" on the Wye River. We pick our way up the Wye; depths are 20 - 30 feet in the middle, but, stray out of the middle, and depths drop precipitously. The cove lies in an elbow of the river, is very small, and has a very narrow entrance. We are 1/4 mile away from it and headed straight for it, but don't even see the entrance, much less a boat. We call Bud and Leslie on the VHF and they assure us that they are there. Our radar shows an indentation for the entrance, and we proceed toward it. Sure enough, we ease on in in 10' of water and there they are!
Eventually, Thistledown joins us, and then three boats, Play Actor, Thistledown, and Canto share this beautiful anchorage. It isn't long before we go visiting. Thistledown sets up an "anti-nettle pool" and the kids eagerly go swimming. We also notice that Play Actor and Thistledown, both Baba 35's, look like positive/negative images of each other, one with green canvas and white hull, the other with white canvas and green hull!
All the land surrounding the cove belongs to the Wye Island Natural Resources Management Area. Bud and Leslie have a map of the wildlife preserve and we go ashore to explore. After picking our way around a soybean field, we find a dirt road and walk along it. Blackberry and raspberry vines abound, but have been picked clean by the animals. Several trails are accessible from the road; several are lined with bluebird boxes and one trail leads to an enormous holly tree.
Angie goes running early in the morning and sees deer, rabbits, squirrels, many birds, and even a glimpse of a fox. The area is beautiful! We are treated to morning coffee on Play Actor and are delighted to see egrets, herons and other water birds. We try to identify them using a bird guide. There are many beautiful sights on the island and in the cove, and we wind up staying there for two nights.
The Bobbing Babas
The next day, Saturday, is slated for the official Baba rendezvous. The cove we're in is too small and a bit tricky to get into, so it is decided to meet in Drum Cove. We weigh anchor and motor for about 30 minutes to our new anchorage. Whew - what a long day! We have an 8-boat raftup on Saturday, and we meet many new folks, including a family (Pat, Trish and their sons Sam and Matthew) on a Baba pilothouse, Seize the Day. Kristina and Luke enjoy roaming the raft-up with their new friends, and for a couple hours they go and visit every boat in the raft-up. Dinner is a shoreside potluck. Luke, Matthew and Sam use a rope swing to swing out over the water, while insisting that they won't get wet. Krisina and Angie find blackberry and raspberry vines laden with berries, and get scratched trying to get as many berries as possible. As darkness falls, we head back to our boats. The raft breaks up, but Canto and Play Actor remain rafted up for the night.
We have had a wonderful stay in the Wye River, and highly recommend the place for its serene and secure anchorages!
St. Michael's
Most of the boats leave early, but Canto, Play Actor, and Seize the Day linger. We're expecting a boat, Salty Dog, but we don't expect their unusual entrance. They float up to the tune of a "Salty Dog" bluegrass piece, complete with a little dance. It's Wally and Jane, returning from a 6 month trip. They raft-up, too, and, after a bit, we wonder where all the children have gone. The mystery is solved when Jane says "They're watching cartoons on our TV." Wally and Jane are restoring an old house in St. Michael's and, since they invite us over, we decide to head to St. Michael's - about an hour from our anchorage in the Wye.
We arrive in St. Michael's to find the anchorage a bit tight, so we anchor just outside, in the Miles River. This is a good anchorage in settled weather since it provides a good breeze to cool the boat. We meet Bud and Leslie for ice cream and a walk around town. We walk past Wally and Jane's house, but they're not home yet, so we don't stop.
The next day, Seize the Day takes a slip at one of the marinas, one with a POOL, and they invite us as their guests. We gladly accept and we do laundry and hang out at the pool for the day. Tomorrow, Seize the Day returns to Annapolis, where they leave the boat when they return to Montana; we plan to head to Baltimore.
Annapolis (Again!)
We head out of St. Michael's at 0600. At 0630, the engine dies. The starboard fuel tank has run dry (OK - so we're still learning). Not a big deal, so we decide to beat out of Eastern Bay and sail on. We switch to the port fuel tank and must bleed fuel through to the injectors to get the engine running again. Unfortunatly, the fuel bleeding procedure as written in the Perkin's Owner's Manual is, while theoretically sound, in practice destructive (we later learn the correct way from Mike Montgomery in Port Annapolis Marina). Adrian, having hitherto bled the diesel only up to the secondary filter, tackles the bleeding while in transit in the Bay, and ruptures the fuel line leading from the filter to the injector pump. Now we really are engineless. Happily, two weeks prior, we signed up with TowBoat/US.
We alter our destination to Port Annapolis Marina (PAM), as they have an on-duty Perkins expert. We have TowBoat/US pick us up at the mouth of Back Creek, and we are expertly delivered to the marina's service dock. Mike has a used fuel line under his desk, and we're back in business by 1600. However, PAM has a pool., and as we're being serviced by Mike at the service dock, we're being charged reasonable rates. It's hot, there's a front coming, and we have some other things to do, so we stay three nights, during which time we mend our canvas, clean the now empty fuel tank, fill up on water, clean the boat, replace all our filters, change the oil, change our alternator belt (mistake!), and get lots of practical diesel knowledge (and some beer) from Mike.
Baltimore
We leave PAM early in the morning and set our sails for Baltimore. It's a delightful close reach up the Bay, in the fresh post-frontal winds, and we all but sail into Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Along the way, we pass by the spot where Scott Francis Key penned the lyrics for The Star Spangled Banner while on a British ship anchored near Fr. McHenry. There's a star spangled buoy marking the spot!
We must cut a swath through the paddleboaters to find an anchoring spot at the base of the World Trade Center.
Anchoring here is made challenging due to the myriad paddleboaters, deep yet small anchorage, mediocre holding ground, and the presence of other anchored boats. We manage, though, and it's worthwhile - here you are literally in the center of Baltimore -- it's a real blast! The National Aquarium is right next to the anchorage and is world class. There's a Barnes and Noble quite close, and there are hundreds of nearby shops and restaurants. Also nearby is the Argentinian frigate, Libertad. Luke joins the paddleboaters in our dinghy, rowing around and making friends.
The Libertad is Argentina's flagship, and is visiting Baltimore on its way around the world. It is a beautiful ship, and, after making the acquaintance of one of the sailors, we are invited into the ship for a quick tour. This boat is more like a yacht than any sort of warship!
A couple of good friends, Barry and Jo, join us in Baltimore over the weekend, and we have a great time together. Jo and Kristina go nuts in "Beadazzled," which sells all sorts of jewelry-making supplies. Now Kristina can make lots of jewelry! We also visit the lightship "Chesapeake," the submarine "USS Torsk," and a Coast Guard cutter. There's not enough time during the weekend to do even a fraction of the things that are available in Baltimore, but we do what we can while Barry and Jo are with us. We are sad to see them leave.
Baltimore is popping with activity. We go see two free outdoor movies (with free popcorn) in Little Italy, visit the first Catholic Cathedral in the U.S., walk up Federal Hill, and much more. We also watch the Libertad leave, with help from a pair of tugs, and with the midshipman aloft, ready to lower sail. After the better part of a week, though, we feel the urge to press on, so Sunday we weigh anchor and head north.
A visit to Baltimore can literally be explosive. Just before we arrived, Baltimore had to close down its Patapsco River tunnels due to a chemical fire resulting from an overturned chemical truck in the tunnels -- they sounded the civil alarm for that. While we were there, the civil alarms went off again for a chemical fire at a nearby factory - again along the Patapsco river. Reportedly, just after we left, the heat, rain and other factors have combined to cause manholes to begin erupting with fire, like volcanos, around the Inner Harbor area (where we were). What an exciting place!
The C&D Canal and Cape May
We leave Baltimore and head for the C&D Canal. We drop the anchor in the Bohemia river, just shy of the Canal, and get a good night's sleep. The next morning is misty, but we're up before daybreak and underway. As we enter the Canal, it begins to get foggy. We switch on the radar. It gets foggier. We hear a deep fog horn up ahead of us. Aware that we might be invisible to a big ship, we make a "securite" call on channel 13, and instantly get an answer - a large, loaded container ship is headed towards us. We pass without incident, and proceed eastward. It gets foggier. About 3 miles into the canal, Adrian sees a sign which says, "bridge under construction." We realize we must be close to Chesapeake City, but see nothing until, about two boatlengths ahead, one pillar of the bridge looms out of the fog. By this time, we cannot see the opposite bank of the canal. We decide it's time to stop. We know that Schaeffer's Canal House is just beyond the bridge, so after carefully checking radar, we cross the canal to the other side. Through the fog we see the docks, where we tie up to wait for the fog to lift. Schaeffer's serves breakfast, and we especially enjoy their French omelette.
After the fog lifts, we cast off and continue eastward. Luke reports a ticking sound from below, and Adrian investigates. The alternator belt (which also drives the water pump) is fraying. This is the belt we put on in Annapolis - evidently, it is not "super hi-power" as advertised. We are only about 1/2 mile from the Delaware Bay entrance to the canal, and one may not anchor, tie up, or drift in the canal. We have no choice but to press on. The alternator belt breaks just before exiting the canal, and the engine promptly overheats and has to be shut down. We seek a private tow to get us just outside the canal where we can put down an anchor, but our TowBoat/US membership comes into play again; before we get a private tow, a professional towboat shows up. We are pulled into Delaware City, where we put on one of our spare belts. The folks in Delaware City are very friendly, and drive us to the local ice cream parlor.
The next morning, we leave at 0300 to catch the slack-before-ebb and head out of the Delaware Bay. Running the Delaware Bay in the dark is not especially difficult. We use the radar to help watch for ships and have an uneventful (but long) trip to Cape May, NJ. Our planning and early departure pays off -- the ebb tide carries us all the way out of the Deleware Bay.
We arrive in Cape May tired and hot. Anchoring is difficult since there's very little room next to the channel, and there are a number of boats already anchored there. In retrospect, perhaps planning a Cape May stay at a marina would be best. Despite the "no wake" zone, we are thrown some pretty big waves. Apparently, Cape May residents don't think much of sailboats anchoring out. This does not go very far to make us feel welcome.
The next day, we go ashore. It is very hot. We drag our beach stuff to The Schooner restaurant and have a lunch. We know we're in the North now - there are no free refills on iced tea! We inquire as to where we might go to the beach, and are told that for $2.00 per person, we can ride the bus into town where, for $4.50 per person, we can go to the beach. We are not accustomed to paying for beach access, and decide not to start now. We hop back into our dinghy and motor around the little island in the harbor until, at low tide, we find a perfect, quiet little pebble beach, complete with shade. This is where we decide to swim, and we have a wonderful time.
Later, we discuss our alternator situation, and add working on our alternator/waterpump belt arrangement to our list of things to do before the Caribbean. We would like to have separate belts for the alternator and water pump, and would like a more substantial bracket for the alternator. Our list of things to do is growing quite large, and we are very aware that, the farther north one goes, the more expensive things get. A look at the calendar shows us that we don't actually have much time to get these projects done, so we decide to turn around to cheaper, friendly, and more familiar waters. The weather forecast is not favorable for a run down the coast, so, the following day, we weigh anchor in light fog and head back up the Delaware Bay.
We are somewhat disappointed to be heading back, but the sail back through the short stretch of the Atlantic and a good part of the Delaware Bay is delightful, and really lifts our spirits. Dolphins join us in the mouth of the Delaware Bay, and literally jump out of the water around our boat! We ride the tide all the way back to Bohemia Bay, averaging 8 knots for the day!
Bohemia River and Rock Creek
We drop our hook in Bohemia River along with a French boat, Sillage. The Bohemia River is a good spot for boats transiting the C&D Canal to layover for the night. The water is fresh, there are no jellyfish, the holding ground is excellent, and the scenery very good. The French family and we like it so much, we decided to stay and wait out a cold front. We swim, clean the boat, and then Kristina and Luke head over to play with Luic's French legos, which are really cool! We later head over for le dejeuner. Sandrine and Joel wish to find a place along the East Coast to stay for the winter while Loic goes to an American school. They have been cruising for 10 years - they bought their aluminum hull, then finished it themselves. They are headed to Baltimore, and we to Annapolis, so we part ways the next day. Perhaps we shall rendezvous again.
Annapolis is a bit too far for us to make in one day, so we head to Rock Creek, on the Patapsco River. We drop our anchor and notice there are no jellyfish, so we jump in for a swim. Actually, there are jellyfish here, but they are quite sparse. Swimming is OK, but only with care. Adrian rows to the nearby marina, and learns that groceries are available on the other side of the creek; however, a very nice man offers him a ride there in his pickup truck, and so we are, once again, provisioned.
Rock Creek has a set of big white rocks jutting out of the water near its entrance. Some say they're natural, some say they were dropped there by a passing ship. Either way, they make an excellent landmark.
We really like Rock Creek, and spend three nights there, using a day catching up on some work and starting Kristina and Luke on their schooling. We could stay here indefinately since it's so pleasant, with little traffic, swimming, provisioning, and a nearby church, restaurants, and marine facilities.
Annapolis (yet again!!)
We leave Rock Creek for Annapolis, intending to catch up with Bud and Leslie and also inquire about the alternator belt work. Numerous inquiries reveal that it would probably be better for us to head back to New Bern for our engine work and other upgrades, so that is what we decide to do.
Meanwhile, Bud and Leslie inform us that one can take a bus from Annapolis to DC for about $3.00 per person. This would be a good way for us to see DC!
We find a good place to anchor in Spa Creek, with the center of town only a 10 minute walk from here (after a 5 minute row). It is quiet and serene, which provides one with the opportunity to recuperate after visiting bustling Annapolis; in fact, the contrast between the busy town and the serene anchorage is striking. Finally, the anchorage is well protected and free, so there is no financial press to leave.
We head into town and learn that the US Naval Academy band is having a concert by the water. After ice cream, we sit down and enjoy the concert. The Navy band is excellent, and finishes with the 1812 Overture, complete with real cannons fired from the Academy grounds!
Bud and Leslie have picked up a city mooring and, the next day, we do laundry, work on our web page, and head to Bud and Leslie's boat for a light dinner and to watch the Wednesday Night Races. These races typically finish with boats tacking through the mooring field, lots of yelling, racing boats bumping one another, and so forth. We are not disappointed - even though the wind is light, we are surrounded by activity at the finish! To the harbormaster's knowledge, no moored boat has ever been hit by a race boat, but dinghies sometimes have.