2023 Chesapeake Bay Cruise

 

For the last 104 of the season, this cruise proved to be very enjoyable.  Although the light winds tended to make sailing difficult, the mild temperatures and clear skies more than made up for the amount of motoring required.  A final day of light wind sailing capped the year off perfectly. 

ACADAME left Lankford Bay Marina under clear and cool skies, the leaves changing on the trees making the shoreline beautiful.  Because of the last minute departure of one of the crew, Captain Frank Mummert was serving as the Skipper of the Day, while Lance and Doug stood the wheel watches.  We did an odometer calibration run as we left Langford Creek, using the Green Day Marks 3 and 1 as the end points of our track and determining that the odometer was reading 88% low, giving us a correction factor for the rest of the trip.  

As we came around the south end of the Eastern Neck wildlife refuge, we stopped and drifted for lunch, then took some time to perform two and three bearing fixes for training.  Just as we left the Chester River and headed up toward Swan Creek, our sister ship, SCHOLARSHIP, passed us, headed for Annapolis.  We continued up to the Swan Creek Marina Mooring Field, where we stopped at the pump out dock to pick up some left behind supplies, then shifted out to Mooring Ball 4 for dinner in the cockpit as the sun dropped below the horizon. 

Morning found us dropping the mooring ball just after dawn, with Skipper of the Day Doug calling the shots.  We were soon out of the marina and headed south, directly into the teeth of a five knot gale!  The surface of the Bay was so flat that we could watch the reflection of the sun come peeking out of the clouds.  We were soon out in the Bay proper and headed for the Love Point safe water mark, when a huge cargo ship, coming down the eastern side of the Bay and also headed for the safe water mark caused us to deviate slightly from our nav plan and turn south for the Eastern Channel of the Bay Bridge about a half mile earlier than anticipated.  We adjusted for the change and were soon under the bridge and headed for the Red Buoy #88, where we crossed the channel and started heading for Annapolis.  Just after crossing the shipping channel and as we were entering the cargo ship anchorage area, the Raw Water alarm on the engine started screaming! 

Not to worry, of course; it was just Captain Frank’s first casualty drill of the cruise.  Skipper Doug quickly leaped into action, instructing Lance to keep the boat under control and traffic under observation as he performed some immediate troubleshooting.  After determining that the problem was not one that could be handled at sea, he made the decision to contact the (simulated) Coast Guard and arranged for a (simulated) tow from TowBoatUS.  After a three bearing fix to determine our location and noting that the wind was fair for sailing (as long as we didn’t need to go fast), we set the main and genoa and continued our journey. 

Just as we set our sails and started west, we discovered that our sister ship was once again in the vicinity, leaving Annapolis and headed for points south.  The interesting crossing situation forced us to head far off our track so that SCHOLARSHIP could pass in front of us, since she was the stand-on vessel, and we waved and called to each other as the two boats passed.  About 90 minutes later, we arrived outside the channel to the Chesapeake Harbour Marina and dropped the sails.  We motored up the unfamiliar path and discovered a touch of shoaling just inside the channel, near the entrance to the keyhole marina.  After backing out from the gentle grounding, we continued into the marina and discovered that the actual opening to the slips required us to pass between two very large power yachts.  There was no more than 30 feet between the two boats, meaning that we had to be very careful with our controls.  After squeezing through, we found our assigned slip and were soon tied up in slip H-14. 

Dinner that night was at the excellent Beacon restaurant at the marina and we slept soundly, with our HVAC system having to provide neither heating or cooling.  During the night, the clouds that had formed in the late afternoon cleared and it was a clear and bright morning as we enjoyed breakfast at Grump’s Cafe, a local Annapolis landmark.  

After leaving the marina - the area between the two powerboats being even more constricted by the presence of a diver working underneath one of the boats - we avoided the shallow spot in the channel and headed back into the Bay.  The winds again were negligible to non-existent and coming from directly off our stern, causing us to have to motor in near windless warmth in the cockpit.  We headed this way for about an hour, then turned slightly to pass under the bridge and head for the abandoned Sandy Point Shoal lighthouse.  The slight change in angle improved the breeze across the boat and we soon were almost chilly. 

After crossing the Chesapeake Channel and heading toward the Love Point safe water mark again, the smoke detector in the main cabin began beeping incessantly and annoyingly.  Once again, Captain Frank was running a drill, this time a fire in the electrical panel.  Skipper of the Day Lance took control and sent his crew below to investigate, while he kept the boat on track and contacted the (simulated) Coast Guard and Towboat.  The fire was soon out and, after reestablishing our location with a two bearing fix, we were underway again, unfortunately still under motor power. 

We arrived at the end of our charted path by 3:00 and had a quick discussion about our anchorage for the night.  The spot that Captain Frank had originally chosen was a little too protected, which would have resulted in no breeze at all during the night.  We decided to continue on to Comegy’s Bight, just off the north side of the Chester River, where we dropped an upstream and downstream anchor for a Bahamian moor.  As the sun dropped below the western horizon and a glorious gold moon rose to the east, we discovered that we were not the only boat to have chosen this secluded anchorage, identifying four other anchor lights around us.  Dinner was pasta and crusty bread in the cockpit as the boat cooled down in the gentle night breeze. 

Morning dawned cloudy and with a little more breeze building from the east.  We set the main sail and then raised both anchors, drifting off the anchorage as we set the genoa for a broad reach.  We sailed past one of the other boats in the anchorage in a gentle 5 to 7 knot breeze, the boat ghosting along between 1 and 2 knots.  We continued down the river until we could gybe to head up Langford Creek.  The combination of a building breeze and moving to a more upwind point of sail increased our speed and we were eventually moving along at 4 knots, with a slight heel to port.  Alas, all good things must come to an end and we were soon rounding up and furling the sails, followed by a pump out and a refueling before ending up back in our slip at Lankford Bay, tired but exhilarated at the end of our cruise.