October 13, 2017

    The busy first week of October had left us feeling slightly smarter, though quite exhausted and socially drained.

The entire week before the boat show we watched boat after boat arrive – big, new catamarans; luxurious multi-million dollar power boats; salty wooden double-enders; super shiny production sailboats whose refrigerators held more than their holding tanks.  Boat traffic in the bay became ridiculous.  Even our little anchorage all the way up Back Creek which we had largely to ourselves for weeks (already too tight to put out a comfortable scope of anchor chain) now was being shared with three other boats!

Every excursion through Back Creek was a never-ending slalom around boats which had anchored in the channel for the show.

When we visited Dena and James on S/V Nomad, they recounted to us how one of the sailboats that had anchored very near to the slip they were in had put out an inadequate scope of chain and dragged their anchor when the wind picked up, crashing into one of the pilings that Dena and James’ boat was tied to!  Apparently it took something like an hour for the older couple to sort out how to get off the post without smashing into Dena and James.

In turn, we recounted to them how a couple had, just the day before, anchored their sailboat in way too close proximity to us (despite having other equally good options a bit farther away) and were subsequently given a citation by the Harbormaster for anchoring too close to a nearby dock – anchoring boats are supposed to maintain a 75 foot distance from marina slips and private property.  They moved the boat; but, much to our shock and dismay, basically anchored just as close on the opposite side!

As Dena and James went on to describe the yacht as displaying a Canadian hailing port and having a very protective German Shepherd aboard, Kris and I realized simultaneously that this was exactly the same couple who was anchored next to us!  We spent the rest of the evening nervous about Exit being dragged down on by some crazy Canadian couple’s sailboat, but were relieved to find no such thing had happened when we returned in our dinghy later that night.

Nonetheless, we decided it was time to pull up anchor and get the Hell out of Dodge.   Though the 2017 Annapolis Sailboat Show had ended, the 2017 Annapolis Power Boat Show was in full swing, gearing up to begin in a couple of days.   There were undoubtably other nearby places on the Chesapeake that offered a lot more water with a lot fewer boats. 

With only about a month left before we needed to be getting underway on a southern heading (more than one person has commented that we are already a week or two behind the crowd… ok with us… and we had better get prepared to be cold if we leave much later… not so ok), we are desperately trying to get our refrigeration system sorted out by switching it over to 12 volt which also requires getting solar figured out and installed as well, before we set off.

This requires us to stay in fairly close proximity to Annapolis, where the refrigeration guy we’re working with is located, in case we can get everything sorted and on the schedule.

So, for now, though we can’t go far, we have a wide open body of water to explore.  On a loose leash… and a long anchor chain!

October 4, 2017 

Marinas are strange organisms.  Every one is unique in certain ways while, at the same time, exactly like the last one you visited.  That’s speaking from the vast experience of both marinas I’ve been in.

No doubt, the late night laundry option and endless supply of hot shower water are two decadent guilty pleasures we are very keen on.  However, there are also a wide range of characters every marina seems to have in play.

They range from very pleasant passerby conversations… like the guy walking his golden retriever who handed us a business card and declared, “I’m an engineer.  I know how things are built.  And you, my friends, have a brick shithouse that’ll go anywhere!”…

… to the sheer entertainment and sometimes painful witnessing of humans interacting with each other – for example, while having pizza in the cockpit with my parents as an expensive, production line 40 foot Bennetau comes around the corner trying to get into its slip, bow thrusters whining away, husband at the wheel and wife at the bow holding a dock line, both wearing what looks to be a very expensive set of headset radios (meant to reduce the ineffective yelling that often occurs between the cockpit and bow during a docking or anchoring maneuver), only to hear the husband scream at the top of his lungs from the cockpit to his wife standing at the bow, “Turn on your fucking headset!”

Always an adventure… rarely a dull moment.

But the marina served its purpose and my folks were able to come aboard to visit our new home.  We even managed (by we I really mean Kris) to navigate out of the marina, get my parents out for their first sail ever to visit St. Thomas Lighthouse and sail beneath the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and return unscathed to tie up again at the clearly posted No Docking inner wall of the marina.

Three things were abundantly reinforced during my parent’s visit:

1.   Whenever possible, let Kris do the close quarters maneuvering.
2.   I couldn’t ask for two parents who are more supportive, in all aspects of every seemingly crazy endeavor we undertake.
3.   Never ride in a rental car my Dad is driving!

September 29, 2017

    The delivery cancelation freed us up for the rest of the month.  Now we could spend an additional week sailing.  First to nearby St. Michaels, then back across the Bay and under the Chesapeake Bridge to the Magothy River for a brief layover at anchor nestled between Dobbins Island and Little Dutch Island, followed by what would most likely be a beat against the wind up to Baltimore.  Baltimore would mark both our furthest point north to date as well as our first endeavor to sail into the port of a major city, which sounded excitingly intimidating.  On the charts, it looked like a frightening collage of markers and buoys.

Wind was hit and miss throughout the week but the overall weather was certainly with us.  For being the end of September, I think we have been lucky to experience autumn days that seem more reminiscent of the summer than anticipating the upcoming winter.  Surprisingly few trees along the shore have begun to change color; it seems to be a much slower process here.  Maybe it’s just been a long a long time since we saw that entire process happen…fall of 2008, just before we left the Pacific Northwest, would have been the last time we saw the trees change color from beginning to end… it certainly didn’t happen in Borneo!  Or maybe we just didn’t slow down enough and take the time to really appreciate the whole process until now.

Photo taken on Chesapeake by S/V Gerty

After getting our first taste of simply meandering around under sail and dropping anchor for a day… or two… or three… wherever the impulse suited us, no interaction with other people outside of the occasional exchange of a wave of the hand and a smile, we emerged from the isolated serenity and solitude of the Wye and Magothy Rivers and sailed north for our first rendezvous with a big city.

Making 7.8 knots of speed

Approaching Baltimore

On the chart, Baltimore Harbor (or apparently Bal’more as many Bal’moreans prefer) appeared to be a confusing and treacherous navigational maze of markers, buoys, and shipping lanes… certain disaster for the unfamiliar sailor.  In actuality, sailing under the Baltimore Bridge (I’m not sure when the rush of sailing under a bridge wears off but I hope not too soon) and into the harbor turned out to be a piece of cake.  We dropped the sails and motored past gargantuan rusty cargo ships tied up alongside the docks and $100+ per night marinas housing floating fields of fiberglass.

With a quick reference to the Waterway Guide to the Chesapeake (a gift from Dena and James, who also happen to be contributing editors) and a set of coordinates texted from Dena, we anchored between two marinas.  As a bonus, we were only about 100 meters from the public dock.

“Private Dock – No Exit” 

     We had already been joking much earlier about taking it a bit personally when residents of these fine communities we were visiting posted signs telling us, by name no less (!), to stay off their dock!
     Understandably, people with private docks and those paying for slips don’t want just anyone using their property (most people would get fairly irate if a random motorist parked in their driveway). Nonetheless, that situation sometimes creates quite a challenge for the liveaboard sailor who relies on a dinghy for any shore excursions.
     In a remote location, landing ashore by dinghy may place you on a romantic and picture perfect mile long stretch of white sand beach… but in a city in the U.S. it generally places you in someone’s back yard.
     Annapolis has adopted a very boater friendly approach by constructing public docks at the end of every street which provide an easy shore access and location to safely tie off your dinghy. Other places have fewer public docks to access or none at all, sometimes resulting in a stealth deployment dinghy maneuver requiring a quick one person drop-off or pickup without tying off on a dock posted with a No Trespassing sign… tricksy.

We really wanted to sail all the way to New York City – we could think of nothing more iconic than sailing under the Brooklyn Bridge and past the Statue of Liberty; but we’ve come to accept that it’s just not in the cards this year.  Leaving any earlier wasn’t feasible (even now I think we’re marginal in our capability to make a coastal run than takes us at all offshore) and now, the winds are starting to turn consistently unfavorable to sail that course.

So Baltimore it is.  In fact, I would imagine that Baltimore is the first place that would come to mind for most people who couldn’t get to New York but were looking for a close second… hmmm.  When Kris told our good friend Ewan (from Wales working at Scuba Junkie Komodo) that we were sailing to Baltimore, Ewan replied “Oh ya, I watch The Wire… that’s like the murder capital of the world!”

But that’s a bum wrap for Baltimore.  We had no attempts made on our lives during our entire dinghy ride around the inner harbor (possibly the homicidal portion of Baltimore’s population prefers to work ashore) and I thought the mile and a half walk from the community dock to Sip and Bite (a recommended diner we were told was a mandatory stop) was a rather pleasant affair along a very clean boardwalk.  I’m sure other sections of Baltimore are not as prudent to visit.

The one land excursion was quite enough for me; though Kris, who seems to get a bit more stir crazy if she doesn’t get off the boat regularly, managed to do a much more respectable walkabout around the harbor.

Our only encounter with the surlier side of Baltimore happened from the vantage point of our own deck, when one of the many dockside fishermen casting a line into the water accidentally made an errant cast that got tangled in a line tying the dinghy to the sailboat next to us.  The quite strange guy on the boat had a quite normal response of what the fuck?  Though he actually spent about fifteen minutes untangling the line, the verbal exchange back and forth left for some tension in the air… no guns… and about 100 feet of water between them… no big drama.

After a few days, it was time to pull up anchor and head back for the Magothy River en route to Annapolis to rendezvous with my folks.  My only complaint with Baltimore was the amount of garbage that came up on the anchor chain!

It was like we were back in Semporna again, dredging the bottom of the channel… slimy plastic bags, garbage and rotting shirts.  Only now, that trash was stuck to our chain and anchor.

Hundreds of years of serious industrial use had not been kind to the bay;  I could not imagine eating one of the many fish that people along the dock and boardwalk were constantly reeling in.

Also embedded was the dreaded Chesapeake mud we are becoming so familiar with.

Now, granted we have very limited experience to draw conclusions from, but I wanna go on record as saying I believe the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay is made up of some pretty unique material!  Sandy, silty, clay ranging in color from deep gray to black – with a consistency somewhere between baby shit and wet cement – is the very composition which seems to give us an absolutely solid anchor hold every time… but its also the same stuff that voraciously sticks to the chain and anchor!   If we were in the tropics, the sand would simply fall off the chain and anchor being brought up, but here they emerge from the water covered with an incessant coat of mucky sludge.  Once on the deck, or worse yet in the chain locker, the mud gets everywhere.  On your hands, it seems more like grease than dirt.

We are fortunate enough to have an electric windlass (to deploy and pull up the anchor chain) as well as a saltwater deck wash system (a pump that brilliantly routes saltwater from outside the boat to hoses both at the bow and stern).  I’m going to be the first to say that if that makes us less salty or bigger sellouts – then I accept that label wholeheartedly.  Cause I’ve watched the guy who hoisted the chain by hand and washed it off a bucket at a time… and I wouldn’t trade places with him for a minute.  He gets, and deserves, all the credit that can be heaped on him, but I’ll still take the windlass and hose any day!”

So, after the relatively simple (thanks to the electric windlass and deck wash hose I couldn’t imagine being without) though still arduous task (in that, compared to other locations, is was pretty damn disgusting from a garbage standpoint) of raising and de-sludging the chain and anchor, we were back underway, headed south to the now-familiar overnight anchorage behind Dobbins Island at Magothy, and on to civilization – Annapolis to meet my folks and then attend a boat show!

September 21, 2017

     A few days after arriving on the Wye River we received notice from Dave that the delivery we were scheduled to crew on at the end of the month had fallen through.  It was a bummer in that it would have given us our first taste of offshore sailing, something we would really benefitted from.  It turned out that the 42 foot Amel, which was going to be brought down to be shown in the Annapolis Boat Show had sold, and the new owner wasn’t interested in showing his boat.  Oh well… it is what it is.

The up side of this was that we now had over a week more to sail around the area before meeting up with my folks, who were flying over from Washington State to visit us and our new home.

Beating across the Chesapeake

Occasional arguments had begun to flare up with the pesky Yamaha outboard which, at its own discretion, begun choosing random moments to shut down.  On more than a few dinghy explorations, we found ourselves temporarily adrift after the temperamental Yama-mama decided it was time for a break.  

If we couldn’t manage to get the outboard going again, then out came the oars and it was back to manual propulsion just like the old days!  The only successful tactic ended up being the removal of the whole stinking fuel filter – seemed to run perfectly fine again after that.  Go figure!  Definitely a temporary fix… but better than rowing.

Secluded bays better for rowing anyway

Back Creek Aug 2017

September 15, 2017 

     Lacking the daily rituals of a particular work schedule or having things happening on specific days, the calendar has a strange fluidity about it.  Could be Wednesday… could be Saturday.  No garbage pickup Tuesday morning to remember Monday night.  No darts on Thursday evening.  No TV series to hypnotize everyone gathered in the living room for a weekly prescheduled hour.  No lawn to mow on Saturday morning.  Sure, there are endless tasks to be done… but time, for lack of better way I can think of to describe it, just seems to set its own pace on a boat.  Yet, that having been said, there are still noteworthy moments in time when you just have to stop and take notice.

After six weeks of living in a gravel parking lot on the hard, we were now reaching our one month anniversary of living aboard Exit while she was actually in the water!  One month… so much we’ve learned about… anchoring, docking, getting up and down the sails (well… the mainsail and Genoa anyway – I’m still convinced the purpose of a spinnaker is to put fear into the heart of reasonable people!), trimming the sails, chart reading, weather monitoring, close-quarters maneuvering, systems maintenance… it goes on and on.  We’re still yet to have our first offshore sailing experience.  Nonetheless, we’ve spent 700 of the past month’s 720 hours aboard Exit – I hope it’s starting to show!

Back Creek sunset Aug 2017

At anchor Back Creek

Back Creek

For our one month anniversary, we decided to pick up the hook in Back Creek, and head across the bay to the Wye River, just outside St. Michaels.  Our goal was to find some anchorages which offered a bit of fresh scenery as well as much more opportunity for seclusion… a view of the great outdoors surrounded by a forest of trees, rather than the beautifully manicured back yard of someone’s private waterfront property surrounded by a forest of masts!     There are only three things looming on the horizon:  helping Dave (the sailing sorcerer/mentor) complete the delivery of a sailboat from Connecticut at the end of the month for the Annapolis Boat Show, my parents arrival during the first days of October to visit us on our new home, and actually attending the Annapolis Boat Show which starts October 6.

Why go do a delivery on some other boat after just purchasing Exit?  We pondered this after Dave extended the offer at the end of our Annapolis/Norfolk journey, and came to the conclusion that, while we could easily stay busy every day aboard Exit, there were times when you just have to get off the boat… its kinda like never leaving the house.  Plus, part of the delivery would require some time offshore to shorten our delivery time… and offshore experience under guidance is something we can massively benefit from.  A non-paying gig but what the Hell… free food, accommodations, and great experience!  Dave is not only an excellent instructor and an encyclopedia of sailing knowledge, but he also has a story for just about every topic of conversation that comes up!

This leaves a week before we need to be available for the boat delivery.  So it seems an excursion to the Wye River would fit in perfectly as a quiet retreat, with some sailing time built in, before the momentum of activities picks up at the end of the month.

After going through a work-in-progress checklist of things to do/verify prior to raising anchor, we eventually got up the hook and found ourselves outside the marina; but not before Kris racked up yet another flawless docking maneuver at the fuel dock so we could top up our water, get some diesel… and, oh ya, never forget to get the poo pump-out whenever possible!

We made it to the Wye River without incident, and the winds even picked up enough to allow us the pure enjoyment of sailing silently solely under “free power”.  With endless anchorages, the idea was to head up the Wye East River and pick a spot along the way.

From Back Creek to the Wye River

Beating across the Chesapeake

A number of possibilities were nullified by the last minute appearance of another sailboat with better timing, already tucked away in a sweet anchorage, hidden away from view until you were on almost top of the spot… doh!

We thought maybe we’d be ambitious and try for Pickering Creek, well up into the river.  At the time, I don’t think we fully appreciated just how limited the space we would have to maneuver actually was… while the creek itself seemed plenty wide, the charts we were using (both paper and GPS) indicated that the mouth of Pickering Creek funneled very quickly from an eleven foot depth into a narrow channel ranging between 8-10 feet deep.  The channel depth seemed fine as we already had our centerboard part way up so our draft was not more than 5-6 feet.  What may not have been adequately appreciated was the fact that outside of that safe channel remained about two-thirds of the width of the creek, which sat at a depth of five feet or less, invisible to us, outside of the contour lines on a chart or the actual number on the depth gauges in in front of us there in the cockpit.  Also disorienting, the fact that a channel running below the water rarely follows the exact same course as the shoreline, so you can’t simply stay in the center of the creek.  Too late, the realization set in to me (the very inexperienced helmsman), that this was a classic “flying blind under instruments alone” scenario… one which required more hours behind the wheel than I had!

Compounding the situation were the physical characteristics of Exit herself.  Now don’t get me wrong… she’s a beauty… but she’s also quite a big lass, and close quarters maneuvering is not her forte.

Maneuverability and steering are dependent on a lot of different factors.  A boat needs a bit of water going past the rudder to gain any real steering.  Some boats can utilize the water movement from their prop motion to gain steering but Exit, with her prop positioned further away than on some other boats because of her daggerboard, doesn’t have that benefit.  This equates to the boat needing to be physically moving to have any real steering capability.  Some boats also can utilize what is called “prop walk” in which the prop motion (either forward or backward) tends to pull the stern in one direction or another.  Not so with Exit… she takes a bit to get going and even a bit longer to get turning.  For Exit, another factor is the centerboard – something which gives us only a three and a half foot draft when it is up; but, when down it dramatically improves the steering (read as: makes steering possible).  So, realistically, we need a bit of centerboard down to hope for any semblance of maneuverability.

So… that centerboard takes away about fifty percent of the creek depth to work with but allows us to steer.  Just keep her moving…

The moment of panic set in as the depth gauges began dropping fast from 9 feet.. to 8… to 7… to 6… and not slowing.  Kris grabbed for the winch and quickly hoisted the centerboard… As I tried to bring Exit back into the narrow channel, the number on the depth gauge continued to drop… to 5 feet… then 4…

     …now I recall at Herrington Harbor North, just after splashing back in August, putting a marked line in the water to measure the depth with the intention of verifying the number displayed on those very gauges.  I told Kris, at the time, it seemed strange that the water appeared to be one foot deeper than the gauges indicated.  We both shrugged in one of many “I don’t know” moments and filed it away for a moment just like now…

     When the number went below 4 it was like being in a car on the ice with locked brakes – not much you can do cause now you’re just along for the ride… just the holding of breath as you wait for the sickening crunch!

However, at 3.5 feet there was no sickening crunch… nor at 3 feet… thank goodness for that gauge discrepancy… apparently!  Then, at 2.5 feet, we felt and heard the now unmistakable sound of a soft bottom sliding along the underside of our hull!  We still had just enough momentum that we were able turn off the shallows… but it sure scared the shit out of us; we immediately hightailed it back out of the mouth of Pickering Creek and into what now seemed like much safer navigating space.

Thirty minutes later we we enjoying the quickly-becoming-a-tradition after anchor beers in the cockpit, having found our own private bay and anchorage on the Wye River.  Cheers to our day and especially a near miss on running aground… it really was just a soft skim!