Fishing Bay Yacht Club

A short day to Fishing Bay Yacht Club. 

Our first Pelican sighting

 
This is one of our favorite stops. On our first trip we met past FBYC commodore, George Burke and his wife Lyons over on the east shore at Chrisfield, in their Catalina 36. They invited us to stay on the guest docks at FBYC and we have been visiting north and south since. We did not see them on our last visit to FBYC, but this time we find George and his friend Dave trying to diagnose an electrical problem on the new boat a Sabre 42 that they bought a couple years ago. 

 

Dave with George

George and Lyons 42 foot Sabre "Reveille"

Linda and I have an enjoyable visit with George and Dave. FBYC lost power for a couple days after Michael blew through. Power was restored just before we arrive. Linda and I have rather stimulating showers since the water has not heated up yet. Other than that they survived Michael without any damage.

View from the Guest T-Dock

Mill Creek

Much cooler today. With the wind blowing 15-18 mph out of the north we are motorsailing at a pretty good pace. First day we are wearing our foul weather gear for wind, not rain. Quite a contrast from the last week of barefoot sailing and sweating.

Originally planned on a relatively short day to Reedsville. Reedsville is home to a Menhaden fish processing plant. Famous for the smell which can be rather over whelming if you are down wind from it. Reedsville has a few restaurants and a museum, but when we start to smell rotten fish miles away we change our minds and head to one of our favorite protected anchorages, Mill Creek. We hid out there on our first trip south after one of the roughest days sailing ever, for us. Only problem getting there is dodging fish traps, miles off shore. I have to dodge one that I did not notice soon enough in the rough conditions. 

 

Fish traps on a calm day

There are only a couple other boats in Mill Creek, very peaceful. We have hot chocolate with amaretto to warm up. The sun comes out and we are quite comfortable behind our canvas and clear vinyl, protected from the cool breeze in Mill Creek.

Solomons, Michaels arrives

By mid-night we are dancing all over the place heeling with each swing. Linda finds it too noisy to sleep in the front birth. I keep looking outside to check on things. The violent swings loosens the traveler a couple times which I have to tighten. I have left our dodger and Bimini up because it is facing the wind, being able to swing on a mooring. On a dock I would have taken all the canvas off. Finally around 1:00 AM the rain stops and we just have the wind 35-40 mph with gusts over 50 mph, which gradually drops down to 15-20 mph by morning. I finally go to sleep around 4:00 AM. We sleep in to 9:00 AM. After breakfast I put the boat back to cruising configuration and put the dinghy and motor down. Then I tackle the exciting tasks of defrosting the refrigerator and lubing our, getting hard to flush head. We go ashore and head to “Boomerangs” for some excellent dry rub ribs and come back to the “Dry Dock” for coffee and dessert and have a short visit with Dan and Tina. They are heading south with an ICW Rally, a group of boaters that we will try to avoid, but I am sure we will see them in Florida and the Bahamas. Head back to the boat and prepare to head out in the morning.

Solomons, Michael approaching

Nice calm night we slept very well, still a little too warm. Hatches open and I turn on my fan in the middle of the night. In the morning I rebed a leaky hatch, lash down our sail cover, tie down our roller furling and other items to prepare for high winds. Around 1:30 we hop in the dinghy and speed down the creek a mile or for lunch at “Island Hideaway” and enjoy the breeze in a still too humid and hot day. Later after we shower at the Marina we were checking out boats and talk with Dan and Tina “BellaCay”, a Catalina 445, very nice boat. They are from Toronto, Canada and our on their first trip south. Later we met them for Happy Hour at the “Dry Dock” the onsite restaurant. The outer rain bands start hitting the Solomons and we get a little wet getting back to our boat. I put up the dingy and engine for the approaching wind and rain. Pull the drain plug on the dinghy, by 9:00 PM the rain and the wind starts getting intense. We have a few leaks that we have not had before in normal rains.

Solomons

Wake up to a very foggy morning.

I have been trying to decide where to hide for the remnants of hurricane Michael passing through the Chesapeake late Thursday. Here in our little creek might not be to bad, but we decide to go to Solomons on the west shore, where we could get a mooring or a dock. The fog starts to lift around 9:00 AM and we head out. 

Bright Ayes

A couple hours later, checking on AIS I see our friends Betty and Wayne “Bright Ayes” are sailing down from Annapolis, about 8 miles away as this point and it looks like we will intersect out in the middle of the Bay. As we get close enough for me to take some pictures, Betty calls me on the VHF radio. 

At Solomons we pickup a mooring at Zahniser’s Yachting Center and “Bright Ayes” is anchored close by. Betty and Wayne invites us over for happy hour and we have a good time catching up with them. We last saw them in Spanish Wells, Bahamas 2-1/2 years ago.

St. Michaels, Haircut

Boring morning, had breakfast and worked on cleaning the boat. 

Crabber checking bait line in the morning

For lunch we head to town. Still hot and humid so air conditioning was important, no outside dining for us. Unfortunately the only supermarket in downtown St. Michaels closed and is being torn down and being replaced by small shops and apartments. The only other option is about a 1-1/2 miles out of town. I head back to the dinghy and get our folding rolling cart and bags and try to catch up with Linda. I am about a month or two late on getting a haircut so Linda has been scouting out Hair Salons in St. Micheals. Apparently there are no barber shops here, real men have to drive 10 miles to Easton for that. Linda is no where in sight so I track her down with the “Find iPhone” app on my phone, which tells me she is in the St. Michael Hair Salon coming up, just down the road. She sticks her head out the door and tells me I am getting a haircut, my haircut scout. They even have miniature barber pole by the door. Not being very busy I sit down and Linda’s new friend Kate, gives me a good short haircut, beard trim, eye brow trim, squirrel trim (you’ll have to ask Kate what that is).

Leaning house in St. Michaels

After we get groceries and take them to the dinghy we head to the local ice cream shop. Stay and enjoy the air conditioning for a while after we finish. Head back to the boat for dinner. Linda had 15,000 steps on her Fit-Bit for the day, not bad for living on a boat.

St. Michaels

We get up at 6:00AM have breakfast and get the boat ready to leave. After we had first dropped the anchor I noticed some signs obscured by overgrown trees. A day later under closer inspection we read “Warning Cable Crossing”, great I hope we did not hook the cable. Anyways the anchor comes up fine and we just make the bridge opening following a Catamaran out of Spa Creek. We then pull into the Annapolis fuel dock about 30 minutes before they open. We tie up and fill our water tanks before the employees show up for the 8:00 AM opening. We fuel up and pump out and are good to go. We do not rush off the dock since the harbor is getting rather fogged in. It is suppose to lift by 10:00 AM so we slowly head out. 

 

Minx

Bright Ayes

We pass two boats moored/anchored in the outer harbor that we had met on our last trip “Minx”, Jay and Tanya on a distinctive Valiant 42 and “Bright Ayes”, Wayne and Betty on a Caliber 47, both blue water boats. Wayne and Betty have crossed the Atlantic on theirs, hard core sailor they are.

We have the AIS on and once we slowly clear the Harbor there was no fog on the open water, only on the shore around the harbor. 

 

Foggy morning leaving Annapolis

I should of realized that was the case, after seeing how fast the boats on the AIS were traveling out on the Chesapeake. With very little wind we motor south east to Knapps Narrows a dredged channel between the mainland and Tighman island. Last time through here, I overlooked that the navigation buoys switch sides once you pass the drawbridge half way through, “Red Right Returning” and narrowly missed running aground, leaving on the east side on the wrong side of “Red”.

Well, this time I do run aground entering on the west side, in the channel we traveled through 5 years ago without any problems. I foolishly follow my charts and not the channel markers. Even though the digital charts are updated quarterly my multiple navigation apps and plotters are all wrong. I violated rule number one, follow the channel markers not the charts. Even worst I did not read all the warnings on Active Captain (Trip Adviser for boats) like I normally do for the following days route. Anyways the Army Core of Engineers dredged a new channel last year and moved the new channel to the south. Changed a red buoy to green in the same position. Being confused by charts and buoys not agreeing I had the boat in neutral as we slowly came to a halt. Fortunately the shoal was mud and sand that filled in the old channel and we were able to power off. On the other hand I did pass the buoys on the correct side leaving to the east.

 

Aground in the old "Channel". Can see were we back tracked.

As you can see from our green track left to right we had to back track from where we went aground. And as with many electronic charts we do occasionly motor or sail over land.

We anchored Broad Creek just south of St Michaels. Later in the afternoon we dinghy to the public dock and walk into town for Happy hour at “The Blackthorn”. Again we are slightly disappointed they no longer have their Tuesday Happy Hour. But we do get one of Linda’s favorites, “Ruben Egg Rolls”. This time of year, on the weekdays, St. Michaels is nearly deserted. During the summer or on weekends it can be quite crowded.