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3 day cruise on the Chesapeake Bay

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JohnP
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Initially Posted - 06/29/2012 : 14:39:28

Two weeks ago I took off Wed-Fri for sailing on the bay and being a tourist for the tall ships passing by. I've been busy with work stuff since then and only got a chance to post this today.

Wednesday morning I caught the tail end of the parade of tall ships and modern war ships marking the War of 1812 Bicentennial celebration in Baltimore Harbor. It had rained Tuesday night, so I waited for the nice weather on Wednesday.

The winds were about 15 kt from the north with gusts to 20 or so, and I reefed the main and used my storm jib to have a comfortable ride. As I sailed the 5 miles eastward out of the Magothy River (north of Annapolis & south of Baltimore) onto the Chesapeake Bay, I saw in the distance the profile of the Bounty with its 2 raked masts motoring northward from the Chesapeake Bay bridge.

Bounty passing the Baltimore Lighthouse way out on the bay:

There were a few dozen modern warships and traditional tall ships from all over the world attending this celebration, according to the website. On Tuesday evening I looked up on the [url="http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/"]marine traffic website[/url] the locations of those ships with AIS connectivity, and found that several were anchored south of the bridge and would pass by my location sometime before the evening of Wednesday, June 13th.

- The Bounty (US) (55 meters length overall, 9 meters beam) was anchored in Annapolis harbor.
- A.R.C. Gloria (Colombia) (76m LOA, 12m beam) was located between Tilghman Island on the eastern shore and Deale on the western shore of the bay traveling north at 11 kt on a course of 6 deg, and another check Wednesday morning showed that it was in Baltimore harbor.

These ships were shown on the Marne Traffic website at anchor near Annapolis or south of there:
- The warship JCG Kojima (Japan) (116m LOA, 14m beam)
- The 3-masted barque BAE. Guyas (Ecuador) (44m LOA, 10m beam)
- The 3-masted barque Cuahtemoc (Mexico) passed by the Gypsy later in the morning
- The 2-masted schooner Lynx (US) (23m LOA, 8m beam)
- The 3-masted, full-rigged ship NVE Cisne Branco (Brazil) (78m LOA, 10M beam)
- The Canadian warship 280 (gray hull)
- The 3 masted barquentine Kri Dewaruci (Indonesia) would cruise past the Gypsy also.

Here's a link to a pictorial guide to [url="http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mma/atoz/rigs.html"]sailing ship rigging[/url] designs that shows what a barquentine is, for example.

The waves were about 3-4 feet high and it was pretty wet sailing on a beam reach in 15 kt winds to get across the shipping channel to the eastern side of the bay to watch the ships motor north. I figure if I had been out in the rain the night before I could have seen some tall lights going past, but that would not have been worth the trouble. I was on vacation, after all!

One of the US warships steamed by.

Then the 684 ft Naval Vessel USS San Antonio, an Amphibious Transport Dock, steamed by.

I could see an enormous Mexican flag a few miles south down the bay. The barque Cuahtemoc steamed north past my location.

Next steaming up the bay was the Indonesian barquentine Kri Dewaruci.

Here are some of the crew aboard the Indonesian ship.

Here is a view of some of the rigging on the foremast.

I then sailed back to the west a bit and noticed that the bottom gudgeon on my boat had become loose. So I was forced to head in to the marina to make repairs. I found that I had neglected to use lock washers on the 3 gudgeon bolts inside the transom! What an idiot! I spent a while fixing that and recaulking the lower gudgeon, back at the marina while trying to enjoy some tunes on the new sound system in the boat.

When I finally headed back out, I decided to let out the reef in the main and use the 110 jib, in spite of the steady 15 knot north-northeast winds. I headed south down the bay and hoped the conditions held so that I could go all the way that evening to St. Michaels for a visit to the town and its restaurants and the maritime museum there. It was already 6:30 and I got the lights on and the spotlight out for night sailing.

The trip I planned was about 45 miles one way from the Magothy River north of Annapolis to St. Michaels which is south of Annapolis and also across the bay. I sailed partly on a broad reach but mostly on a dead run all the way down the side of Kent Island to the Bloody Point Bar light house and the entrance to Eastern Bay. I had the boom out with a preventer, and could have used a whisker pole (Like others have mentioned lately) to keep the jib filled. I had no risk of an accidental jibe, but it was tedious keeping the jib working, and hard to eat supper. It was a beautiful pink and purple sunset with a few clouds in the west.

This was my track on both legs of the trip down from the Magothy River, past Annapolis, past Kent Island, into Eastern Bay, south along the Miles River to Leed's Creek, into St. Michaels harbor, and then back. The black line shows the southerly path, the yellow line is the return northward.

The GPS registered my average speed as about hull speed on that leg of the voyage. It did seem that fast with the 3 foot waves rolling along with me down the bay. (7 mph / 1.15 kt/mph) = 6.1 kt; 6 mph / 1.15 = 5.2 kt)

I learned that my new Garmin GPSmap78sc handheld unit could be used easily to navigate to any point ahead by simply moving the cursor ahead of the current position. That vector would be read in degrees and miles on the top of the screen, indicating the course to be taken! I was really happy to have that upgrade from my old GPSmap76!

Here's what I have done to make the floating GPS easy to spot if it flies overboard during a sloppy tacking manoever. I taped some floating yellow polypropylene line to the left and right sides and tied a Celtic knot for a decoration and to increase its visibility in the water. The big loop would be easy to pick up with my boat hook in such an incident. I bet the gray case would disappear immediately even though it was floating nearby!

I turned the corner to the east and began beating to windward. I planned on a relaxed beam reach to the east, but the shoreline there presents a long peninsula up along the banks of the Miles River that was the lee shore that had to be avoided. My course needed to be east-northeast, and the breeze was from the north-northeast.

So I made good use of the navigation-cursor to "give myself some leeway", as they say. It was about 11 or 12 PM when I started tacking into 15 knot winds with the same 3 foot waves as I had been surfing peacefully just a while before. The Gypsy was heeling and I was dumping wind to keep her on her feet, while cross-sheeting on the windward side with each tack. I was glad I had not convinced the admiral to crew on this breezy, warm-weather cruise. She would have hated it! The boat handled it well, and I had some time to grab a snack and a drink while navigating by GPS and trying to identify the many red, green and white lights ahead. Some red markers looked like they were the close ones I needed to get to, but they were big lights in the distance! I have only sailed the Eastern Bay in the day time or in dense fog, so I am not familiar with each of the markers by sight, at night, along the way.

I don't know why, but some sort of sport fishing boat was steaming up behind me and turning to port and starboard several times in the middle of the Eastern Bay. I just shined the spotlight on my sails a few times over maybe half an hour to let them see that I was a sailboat. They disappeared later.

Here's a part of the sail track along that coast, showing how I managed to get around the point of land against the northeast wind. On this detailed chart the yellow zig-zag line was my course from about 10 PM to midnight.

It was a real pleasure to turn south again some time after midnight and trim the sails for a downwind run up the broad Miles River to the town of St. Michaels. I had the luxury of sailing downwind in the middle of the channel which wound to the left and and to the right past waterfront docks and small marinas with various lights marking the shoreline. There are some shallow spots in this mile-wide river that could ground the Gypsy in the mud.

I had considered stopping once again at the pleasant anchorage inside the mouth of Tilghman Creek near the tip of the peninsula. It's marked by the word "Marsh" near the tip of the peninsula on the detailed chart above. That would allow me to cruise the 5 miles or so to St. Michaels in the morning. Then I remembered the advice in my Chesapeake Bay gunkholer's guide that listed the well protected anchorage in Leed's Creek just across the wide river from St. Michaels itself. That's where I headed this night.

Leed's Creek is blocked from northerly breezes by a nice stretch of trees on a mile-long spit of land. I dropped the sails halfway between St. Michaels and the opposite creek and motored into the 300 ft wide creek until I found a nice spot to anchor. The wind had abated to maybe 5 knots there, and that was fine by me. It was a dry evening. I left the sails tied down but uncovered, checked for a dry bilge, turned off the running lights, switched on the LED anchor light, and went to bed around 2 AM. The boat was swinging gently on the anchor rode, the anchor was not dragging, and I turned off the GPS. Long day!

In the morning twenty of so tourists were riding on a tour boat that came chugging by while I had my breakfast. I looked at the paper chart and saw that Leed's Creek extends for more than a mile upstream from the Miles River. The tour boat disappeared around a bend upstream and came back an hour later. I think there are fancy estates and other sights along the banks that are picturesque. Near my spot I saw 3 flat-roofed crab boats working the waters of the creek. Lots of people earn a living on the water around here. This is the view across the Miles River.

I got the sails and the cabin covered, called the St. Michaels Marina, and motored across the river to the town, tied the boat up, and rented a slip for the night. I taped some floating polypropylene line to my handheld VHF also - This is a monkey's paw knot at the end of the line with a bowline loop. It's also waterproof, but I think itwould be lost overboard in the dark water without something like this to help see it.

Here's what you see on entering St. Michaels harbor - The lighthouse and a skipjack at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

Some local sailors were taking their schooner out for a sail as I motored in.

St. Michaels is the town that fooled the British in their attack during the War of 1812 by putting lots of lanterns up in trees outside the town, which subsequently got bombarded at night. I suppose the Royal Navy must have been in a hurry because they had a pressing engagement at Ft. McHenry in Baltimore. The St. Michaels story goes that one, and only one, British cannonball struck the roof of a house in town and the burning hot sphere then rolled down the stairs where it was kept as a souvenir!

So here I was in the historic town! After having a shower, I had a really nice lunch at the St. Michaels Crab and Steak House which is right at the marina. "Clams Annie on the half shell with bacon, scallions, & cheese overlaid with crabmeat" started me off and I also had the wonderfully spiced crab cake dinner with all the fixins and a cold brew. Fantastic! You know, that's why I drove into the teeth of the north wind the night before, so I could feast like a king!

I then went for a walk into town.

This is a reconstruction in St. Michaels harbor of John Smithâ€™s shallop - sailing dinghy - in which he and a bunch of old salts tramped around the entire Chesapeake Bay in the summer of 1608 mapping all the waterways.

The museum has a bunch of boats on the water, in sheds, in construction or repair, and in video and photo demos. There is the Hooper Strait Lighthouse that was pushed off its base by a wild ice floe one winter a long time ago. It was rescued and placed on land here. It's one of the screwpile lighthouses that were set into the mud bottom using giant iron screws. There are very few rocks in this central part of the Chesapeake Bay, and I like it that way! Sure is different from the rocks in the Narragansett Bay or other places I've sailed!

One of the traditional fishing boats on the bay is the skipjack, and here's a miniature one.

This is the hardware that includes wooden mast hoops, on a skipjack here in St. Michaels.

Here's a project they're working on in one of the sheds at the museum.

Outside of the museum I passed by 2 musicians setting up for their free folk concert later, so I decided to come back to the park after supper.

I walked over to the Crab Claw Restaurant where I enjoyed a nice dinner of crab cakes, this time not so specially flavored but really big portions, along with fries and salad. The nice people at the next table couldn't finish their dozen steamed crabs, so I took two back to the cooler on the Gypsy for a midnight snack!

The little kids were running all around and became part of the show at the folk concert. The music was fun to hear, but I was glad to crash in my bunk with the pop top raised for some quiet time as the sun set through a few clouds on the horizon.

On Friday morning I got up with the dawn and prepared to shove off for home.

The predicted east wind seemed to come out of the north again! That meant tacking all the way north up the Chesapeake after sailing out of the Eastern Bay. It looked like a 10 knot breeze or more in the marina, which was only protected from the west and the south. I rigged the main and hank-on 110 jib, tied down the bimini and the sails, and then motored all the way north out of St. Michaels and the Miles River to the Eastern Bay in the clear morning light. It was going to be an interesting sailing trip back home.

I got to sail on a calm beam reach out of the Eastern Bay westward into the Chesapeake, and then turned northwest towards the western shore. Tacking up the bay was very pleasant with perhaps a 10 knot NNE breeze. I passed right next to the good, old Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse. Now I know what it's sitting on!

I counted eleven commercial ships still at anchor up and down the bay off of Annapolis, and this was more than usual. Perhaps it was due to the difficulty of coming and going through the USCG safety zone established in Baltimore Harbor for the weekend festivities.

Here is the YP676. I learned that it is a Yard Patrol Craft used by midshipmen at the US Naval Academy.

I made it north of the Bay Bridge and then turned west towards the Magothy River. The sail track back home was over 50 miles with those very big tacks to the east and the west, about 5 miles longer than the direct route on the way south.

The wind died when I was about a mile from the marina, and when I started the Honda 9.9hp outboard I passed a bunch of Friday afternoon sailors in the river who had hoped for some wind.

Here is an aside about my Honda outboard. This year I have only used fresh gas each time. I also always flush the engine out with fresh water using a hose attached to the flush adapter on the engine block. I do this after each use. I remove the fuel line then run the engine up out of the water until it stalls. Running the engine keeps the thermostat open to flush the whole engine. The hose gives it only fresh water intake. I have had the best results this year with starting and running. I bring the fuel tank home after each sail, and dump the gas into my car. The Honda outboard starts on the first pull with fresh gas, and the impeller spits perfectly! I am very happy with its performance this year.

This was an interesting and fun 3 days off work, and I hope to head out to some other gunkholes when I have the chance.

Happy sailing!

JohnP
1978 C25 SR/FK "Gypsy"
Mill Creek off the Magothy River, Chesapeake Bay
Port Captain, northern Chesapeake Bay

Edited by - JohnP on 06/29/2012 18:34:37

DaveR
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Response Posted - 06/29/2012 : 17:11:51

Just a fantastic post John. There's an article for the next mainsheet!

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redeye
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Response Posted - 07/03/2012 : 12:24:49

Sweet!! That was such good reading ( and pics )

That must have been a hoot seeing all those boats.

Thank You!

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Nautiduck
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Response Posted - 07/04/2012 : 10:39:03

What a wonderful sailing venue. Thanks for posting!

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John Russell
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Response Posted - 07/04/2012 : 11:59:03

Was the Indonesian ship really flying a pirate's flag. Strange on a government vessel, particlarly on from an area known for pirates.

Thanks for posting. I really enjoy seeing the photos of tall ships.

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awetmore
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Response Posted - 07/04/2012 : 12:14:34

Thanks for the great trip report. Parts of my family are from the Eastern Shore (my mom lives less than 10 miles from St Michaels) and it is fun to see what that part of the world looks like from the water.

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ruachwrights
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Response Posted - 07/17/2012 : 10:49:35

Great posts and pics! To single hand and keep your camera handy is no small feat. I dig your spirit for adventure.

Vern Wright
Hajime

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Joe Diver
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Response Posted - 08/02/2012 : 06:58:45

Great trip report and pix! I felt like I was tagging along.

I'm really envious of you Chessie sailors....I've thoroughly explored my little Texas lake, and while still enjoyable is rather routine....and with daytime temps at 107+, not dropping below 95 until after midnight......ugh.

I need a change of venue. I work from home full time, so I can live anywhere I want.

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GaryB
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Response Posted - 08/04/2012 : 18:24:47

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Joe Diver
 Great trip report and pix! I felt like I was tagging along.

I'm really envious of you Chessie sailors....I've thoroughly explored my little Texas lake, and while still enjoyable is rather routine....and with daytime temps at 107+, not dropping below 95 until after midnight......ugh.

I need a change of venue. I work from home full time, so I can live anywhere I want.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Come on down to the Galveston Bay! My marina has plenty of brand new floating slips available at a special price (12' X 40' slip for the price of a 25' slip, water & electric). Full size finger slips on both sides. Dolivaw is on one side of me and there's a C250 on the other side. There's one slip on the other side of Dolivaw (close to the parking lot) that's empty so we could "own" that corner of the marina.

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Joe Diver
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Response Posted - 08/05/2012 : 09:00:48

Gary, I would be interested in checking it out. I'm still 2 years out from my next boat, but I've been leaning more toward a coastal cruiser down south with ocean access.

However....when I meant a "change of venue"....Im looking for much cooler temperatures overall. While I enjoy the year-round sailing we have, these 3 or 4 months of the year where we see blistering triple digits.....I want to be away from this. I can't take this excessive heat anymore.

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GaryB
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Response Posted - 08/05/2012 : 19:21:07

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Joe Diver
 ..While I enjoy the year-round sailing we have, these 3 or 4 months of the year where we see blistering triple digits.....I want to be away from this. I can't take this excessive heat anymore.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
I hear you on the heat. I went down ot the boat Friday night witht he intention of spending the night. Went out for an hour or so with a nice breeze. Got back to the dock and it wasstill above 85 and the wind had died. It was only 10 pm so I decided to go home and sleep in the a/c and my own bed. Gald I did. The next moring the wind was zero and at 9:15 a weather websire right on the bay said the heat index was 101.

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BCG-Woodbury
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Response Posted - 12/05/2012 : 21:16:13

Hi JohnP -

I am taking over for Dave Bennett as C25 Mainsheet editor. Let me know if you would be interested in writing your trip(s) up as an article for a future issue. I was thinking of doing East Coast, West Coast, Gulf Coast, Great Lakes as features over the next 4 issues. I'm just gathering interested parties now. You can reach me directly at bgleissner@aol.com

Thanks,

Edited by - on

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