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| Southern Star Leading the Way |
On Saturday the 6th
of August we pulled up the hook and departed the Patuxent River anchorage around 1000, continuing our journey up the Chesapeake, once again in formation with Southern Star. Our destination was originally a marina at
Rock Hall, Maryland, on the east side of the Chesapeake, but we decided to
divert to the west side of the bay and drop the hook again, this time at the
Magothy River anchorage, just north of Annapolis.
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| Weaving Through the Weather |
We got lucky with the weather, as a cold front dropped into
our area from the northeast, but we somehow managed to stay in between the TRWs
that it triggered.
We arrived at the Magothy River just before 1800, but had to
take two shots at getting the anchor to set….on the first drop we fouled on a
nasty collection of shells, trashed out ropes, and some other unrecognizable
detritus, but the second drop found good soft mud and held well. Jo and Robbie motored over to Ghost Rider in their dinghy and we
enjoyed another happy hour together, as well as a spaghetti dinner. We have thoroughly enjoyed their company.
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| Ghost Rider at the Magothy River Anchorage... Pic Courtesy of Robbie's Drone |
Reluctantly we parted ways with Southern Star on Sunday morning (07-Aug) – they were heading to
Baltimore to meet friends and family there, and we were making tracks further
north and east in the general direction of Philadelphia. As we were making our departure preparations
Robbie fired up his DJI drone and took some good aerial photo shots. I briefly thought about launching our drone
and challenging him to a dogfight, but we needed to get moving, so passed up
that opportunity.
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| Motoring Through the C & D Canal |
On our Sunday cruise the weather was just fabulous. as the passage
of the cold front brought in some drier air from the northwest, giving us temps
in the mid-80’s on the water with 50% relative humidity. We drove from the fly bridge all day across
mostly flat water, finally exiting Chesapeake Bay and started a more
easterly trek via the C & D Canal.
We were originally targeting our third consecutive anchorage in
Chesapeake City, but there was no room there for us as that small inlet was
jammed up with weekenders. So we motored
on for another 5 miles and slipped into the Summit North Marina for the night….roughly
halfway between Baltimore and Philadelphia.
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| Summit North Marina |
The entrance to Summit Marina is skinny water….even at a
+2.5 foot tide we saw less than a foot underneath the keel at one point as we
negotiated the entry….at a very, very slow pace….if we were going to run
aground, we didn’t want it to be a cruncher and something we couldn’t power
back out of. But we made it to the dock
without issue, went through our usual shut down and wash down routines,
although we are now in the process of revising our game plan for the next few
days – there is no way we can get out of here until mid-afternoon
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| Summit North Marina |
We slept in late
(well, Rick did anyway) on Monday (08-Aug), and while waiting for a usable
tide we reworked a portion of our mission planning. In the end we decided we would make a short
run today to an anchorage in Delaware Bay, and then on Tuesday skip Cape May
completely – which seemed to hold more depth issues for us – and make an
overnight run up to Atlantic City to arrive there early on Wednesday morning
(10-Aug). That would also allow us to
beat some weather that’s predicted for later Wednesday and Thursday, and hey, Atlantic
City, NJ isn’t a bad place hang out while waiting for bad weather to pass.
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| Continuing Across the C&D Canal |
