Chesapeake Daze

Summer Sloth

After the busy-ness of the boat yard and Florida, we came back to Dennis Point and slipped into low gear.  Jeanette, along with Genny and Marie from Makai, crocheted, cross-stitched, and played minecraft with plenty of swimming breaks in between.  I worked on making the boat livable again, giving the interior a deep cleaning and organizing the clutter.  Ken ticked off his low-priority projects and placed more orders to Defender and West Marine.  For a complete change of scenery, we joined Jackie, Genny, Marie, and Roy for a drive out to their friend's farm where the kids fed the pigs watermelon rinds.

Dream Catcher and Makai - together again.

Down on the Farm

Jeanette avec l'oeuf

Pigs in the woods

Solomon's Island

Summoning the will to leave was no easy task, but we cast off in late July, just over a week after our return from Florida.  We spent a rainy-ish weekend at Solomon's Island anchored the off the Calvert Maritime Museum, which just happened to be hosting a concert Sunday.  Hanging out on the boat on that afternoon, as the skies cleared and the sun came out in full force, we listened to the Gin Blossoms and Smash Mouth play to the crowd long into the evening.  Summer in the Chesapeake was turning out to be not so bad.  

Happy to be underway again.

Whitehall Cove

We rose early the next morning.  The forecasted 15 kts abating to 10 kts turned out to build, instead, to 25-30kts and we were well reefed as we roared into the West River where we spent a quiet night.  With Dream Catcher's hulls so thoroughly cleaned, we can now see just how fast she sails.  The next day, as we breezed by Annapolis to Whitehall Bay, we passed monohulls left and right as if they were standing still.  Gliding into the inner reaches of Whitehall Cove, we settled into our hosts' dock, right next to our sister boat, Lux.  We first encountered the crew of Lux (Terry, Peggy, Michael, Georgiana, and Carol) in 2011 at Alligator Marina where a handful of catamarans had ducked in to wait out a blow before crossing Albemarle Sound.  We were delivering our boat north to Connecticut from South Carolina, and they were bringing Lux up from the BVIs. Leopard owners are a tight-knit group and their yahoo forum is hopping with questions, advice, and recommendations.  The Leopard forum was the conduit for meeting the crew of Makai and for staying in touch with others, like Lux, whose path we happily crossed this summer.  Terry and Peggy could not have been more gracious and we thoroughly enjoyed their hospitality.  I remembered the many custom touches they had added to their boat in 2011 and, this trip, was able to watch their work up close and in progress.  These people are professionals, having recovered their salon settee cushions so beautifully they look brand new!  The cockpit area has summer and winter enclosures with all of the bells and whistles one could hope for.  We were the lucky recipient of a couple of cast offs, which far surpass my sewing abilities.  They were full of advice for me and had my head swimming with ideas.  It's not an exaggeration to say that we had to pry ourselves away.  Well refreshed and newly inspired to begin the sewing projects that have been looming in front of me for months, we said goodbye after two weeks in their beautiful, peaceful cove.  

Beautiful Whitehall Cove (with Lux)

One of many horse farms in the area

Shady lane

Having a blast biking around

St. Michael's 

On the move again and heading north towards Baltimore, we decided to swing by one of our favorite places from last year:  St. Michael's.  A quaint waterfront town on the Eastern Shore, St. Michael's earned a place in history by playing a trick on the British during the War of 1812.  With an imminent attack at hand, the militia hung lanterns in the treetops outside of the town so that the enemy cannons aimed too high and missed all of the houses - except for one, the Cannonball House.  Like much of the bay, the town is built up around the waterfront, which serves as the hub for activities and events.  We love it because everything is within walking distance of the dinghy dock - groceries, supplies, and a great farmer's market on Saturday mornings.  St. Michael's is also home to the wonderful Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.  During our week's stay, we visited the museum twice.  Jeanette and I especially enjoyed the lighthouse, imagining what it must have been like to serve as a lighthouse keeper during the long winter months when ice floes crashing into the foundation sometimes shook the lighthouse so badly the lighthouse keeper could not stay on his feet!

St. Michael's waterfront

Love this museum!

Ferry

St. Michael's farmer's market

Baltimore

Charm City deserves its own post so I will be brief here and just say that we lingered in Baltimore for nearly 3 weeks.  We ticked off more "to do's," caught up with friends, took care of some medical necessities, began cultivating a fruit fly farm, met some more cruisers, went to museums, and enjoyed being in another walkable city.  By the end of our stay, the unusually cool summer was giving way to weather more typical of the Chesapeake - hot, hazy, and humid.  We would have been tempted to stay longer if it weren't for the fact that being stationary (i.e., anchored) was just too uncomfortable, so we sought relief out on the water.

Dream Catcher in Baltimore

Chesapeake Challenges

The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum had a more poetic way of describing the pests, obstacles, and other deterrents that can make spending the summer in the Chesapeake a bit of a challenge, but this is my take on the spoilers.  

• Mosquitos and No-See-Ums - Fortunately, we haven't encountered too many of these this year.  Aside from swarms of midges that develop an unsettling affinity for our cockpit in cloudy weather, the only real bites we've had have been from flies.  Yesterday, we experienced hordes of biting flies while we were underway.  The cockpit looked like the killing fields by the end of the day!  
• Sea Nettles - No plant life here, sea nettles are a type of jellyfish whose name says it all.  Some people go to great lengths to avoid sea nettles while enjoying the water.  Setting up a netted enclosure for bathing is one method.  Although there have been some days hot enough to want to go swimming, we are impossibly jaded and wouldn't even consider getting in this water.  Gazing over the side, we watch, instead, the graceful sea nettles pulsing by.  
• Crab pots - Sailing on the bay requires almost constant vigilance.  The color of the water and frequent white caps often obscure the floats, which often favor white.  Currents and tides can change the way the buoy sits in the water and may even pull them just under the surface.  Crab pots litter nearly every route at some point and we have somehow already snagged two of them.  
• Fish weirs - As if crab pot buoys aren't bad enough, there are, at times, fish weirs to dodge.  Rising up in the distance, their spindly poles and draped netting are enough for me to swear off night sailing in the Chesapeake for good!
• Stink pots - Okay, I had to say it.... Most power boaters have no clue what it's like to be on a sailboat when one of them goes roaring by with their gigantic wake.  On a busy weekend, the constant "waking" from motor boats can almost ruin a perfectly enjoyable sail.  
• 3 H's (Heat, Humidity, Haze) - The prevailing conditions of a Chesapeake summer.

Fish weir

Birds of a feather

Fortunately, we've not only experienced an unseasonably cool summer, but have really enjoyed being here - exploring, discovering, and visiting.  I'm pretty sure this is due to the superior manifestation skills of my husband.  I had warned him that we would be miserable staying in the Chesapeake all summer, and he was determined to prove me wrong.  

Backtracking

Much to our surprise (well, mine, because I'm pretty sure Ken had this planned out all along), Baltimore is as far north as we'll be making it with the boat this summer.  With a promise to meet friends in DC at the end of the month, we have made our way south to the mouth of the Potomac.  A short hop to Rock Hall the first day, notable for our dragging a crab pot into the anchorage with us (sigh), then Herring Bay, Solomon's, and Dennis Point.  Makai is now on the hard, undergoing a similar maintenance schedule that we did in June, and we will be spending some time at Dennis Point lending our support and giving the girls some time to catch up.