Upper Chesapeake Bay

We watched Arabella, a charter yacht, heading through the C&D Canal from our free berth at the floating dock. And then went to the Tap Room again for some more crabs and the Admiral's birthday dinner (she had ravioli).

After three days, we headed on down the Bay toward Annapolis, catching up with Charisma (spelled with the Greek letters) who we raced against for many years in Off Soundings.

The weather was still a bit unsettled, but it wasn't a bad trip. The sailboats were slogging through it with reefed sails.

Sandy Point Lighthouse is just north of the Bay Bridge.

We anchored in Spa Creek in Annapolis for a few days and woke up to a number of pretty sunrises. We had great visits from the Skipper's two children and their spice and some of the grandchildren. We also met up with Patty (our daughter's good friend from college) and Jerry for a nice Mexican Dinner at a neighborhood restaurant away from the touristy downtown.

Considering the fact that it was a Boat Show week, the anchorage was relatively quiet. There were a lot of people around, however, and it was a bit difficult to get the dinghy into one of the road endings to be able to walk ashore.

We went to the first day of the Sailboat Show (we took the water taxi from the boat to the shore), mostly to look at the equipment (toy) booths. We bought one toy -- a wind scoop with screen that will fit in a port hole to increase ventilation in hot weather, at least when there is a breeze.

After another day's wait for good weather, we departed toward Solomons Island, passing a lovely anchored Concordia yawl on the way through the outer anchorage.

It was a fairly uneventful trip this time as we passed by the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse which I think may be the last screwpile lighthouse outside a museum. Then we hung a right at Cove Point toward Solomons Island.

There was a Krogen rendezvous at Calvert Marina where we had driven to the Trawler Fest the week before from Annapolis with friends from Shangri La. We went by the Calvert Museum with its lighthouse and tour boat.

It's a pretty exclusive area, but there are some run-down docks, including this one complete with a sunken 35-40 foot boat. We dinghied ashore for a few groceries, another dozen crabs for the skipper, and a dozen cherrystone clams which we indulged in that evening.

The next morning it was off toward St. Jerome Creek to meet up with the skipper's brother on his boat. There is a nice house right at the mouth of the creek. We anchored off a mutual friends' house. Unfortunately, they were off on a short cruise on their own boat, so we missed them. We hope to catch them on the way home in the spring.

Brother Jock and his crew showed up a little later and we rafted together for cocktail hour before splitting off for the night. The sunrise the next morning was pretty spectacular. (That's Jock's boat on the left.) We got an early start in somewhat questionable weather and discovered that it was snottier than we expected, so we turned tail and headed back to the anchorage to wait for more favorable conditions.

So, here we sit in a lovely protected cove while we listen to much bigger boats on the marine radio talking about the cruddy conditions out on the Bay. Nothing much to do but to listen to music, read books on our Kindles, and write a blog! It sure beats work!

[NOTE: I have shrunk all the photos this time because it makes it easier to edit the post. A simple click on any of them will enlarge it. They are all high resolution. Once it's enlarged, you can right click on it and save it if you want to.]