October 12, 2007

We arrived in Annapolis, MD yesterday after a rollicking 25 NM sail from Fairlee Creek with the wind out of the northwest on our beam with gusts up to 27 and at speeds over 7 knots. The same wind speeds in Nova Scotia produced, well spaced 9 to 10 foot waves that lifted Journey and set her down like burly movers with a chest of drawers. Chesapeake waves are like Chinese soldiers; what they lack in stature they make up for in numbers. Even with lots of fetch they only build to two to three feet, but slap your beam and spew into the cockpit, bumpy, lumpy, fast, foul-weather sailing. Compared to motoring it was heaven topped off by our arriving by chance as the 17th annual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner race was mustering for its start at 1:00 just south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge heading to Portsmouth, VA.

Journey lies on an Annapolis town mooring up Spa Creek, past a bascule bridge that opens only on the half hour.

Marinas

On our way from the Bohemia river to Annapolis we tacked 8 miles further down the Bay and turned east into the Sassafras River for 8 miles to reach Georgetown and Fredericktown, notable for being burned by the British during the War of 1812, and for nothing being developed in the last 195 years except marinas, hundreds of slips, including massive covered slips filled with big square-stern power boats.

Passing down the bay, nearly every creek that a boat can creep into has a forest of masts. There are thousands and thousands of boats in slips, hanging on lifts and on moorings. Anthony Bailey wrote rather snobbishly in The Inside Passage cited earlier: “Waterway veterans know well, a marina is an excellent place for local owners to park a boat...but in general they aren’t any more interesting than motels or trailer camps – in fact, they tend to attract a similar clientele, which seems to go on the water to watch TV, take showers, do laundry in coin-operated machines, and plug innumerable gadgets and appliances into 110 volt ‘shore current.’” We certainly want to appear to be “veterans” at this, but in Georgetown we did laundry and took showers. The only reason we didn’t plug is we opted for a mooring that would be cooler, but we certainly did in Cape May to keep electronics charged that Bailey couldn’t conceive of when he wrote his book in 1963: two cell phones, three rechargeable cameras, laptop, chart plotter, VHF radio, stereo, five pumps, cabin lights, navigation lights, refrigeration and an electric tooth brush. We saw a boat that had a massive array of solar panels and two wind generators that looked like a portable power plant. Is this stuff essential? By no means all of it. Is it useful and fun? Yes, so far, but we'll watch it doesn't become all c0nsuming. Footnote: Cape May Marina has a trailer park attached!

The great thing is the thousands of boats are in their slips or on their racks this time of year, but the marinas are open and not only offer household services, but a full range of mechanical services. We spent a little more time and money ourselves in Georgetown with a special needs engine counselor helping fix the oil pressure sensor and now are confident that our little darling will do well from now on. Marlene noted, helpfully, that at least these mechanic bills are less than paying tuition to a trade school, but not much.

Proving Ground

We left Georgetown Wednesday, it was a satin water day, did a few tacks when ripples appeared, but motored most of the short distance to Fairlee creek. One of the tacks took us towards a restricted zone on the chart, marked by a buoy and a line and when we approached the buoy, a patrol boat with flashing blue lights lurked and undoubtedly watched us as we tacked away. It was the boarder of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a 72,000 acre site that took an act of Congress and two presidential proclamations to buy out farmers in 1917 for $200 an acre to replace a similar proving ground on Sandy Hook, NJ that was proving to be too close to New York City. Aberdeen is bordered by the Susquehanna River, the Chesapeake Bay and aptly named Gunpowder River. Then boom! It was loud and we could feel it and a great cloud of white smoke arose in the distance, frightening but a piddling scare for us compared to those who live where this stuff is put to use blowing people and things up. This is a proving ground all right. It offers proof that we all remain eternally flawed.

We anchored in Fairlee Creek (located about 28 miles down from the end of the Chesapeake end of the C&D canal) for a night of weather change from torpid tropics, to crisp autumn and hard blows that propelled the sail yesterday, and have given us Fall days to see the sites in this 350 year old city.