Sunday, October 5, 2025
Since we were in no rush, we slept until our normal time and had a leisurely breakfast. Interestingly, when we first got up, there was no fog, and as the morning progressed we watched it slowly and steadily roll in on shore.
Eric was fascinated by the big schools of small fish swimming near the surface, which looked like boiling water. We’d seen a lot of these schools of fish in Deltaville. Sunrise:
We lifted anchor at 0800. Unsurprisingly, the anchor and chain were both covered in mud and it took a fair amount of rinsing with the hose to get it off.
The ride to was very calm and uneventful. There was no wind, and thus no wind chop — just a small, gentle swell. We ran at 1750 RPM and averaged about 6.5 knots of speed. Other than a few low clouds on the horizon, the day was sunny and the temperature was 70-degrees. It was gorgeous. We arrived at the anchorage, on the south side of the Solomons, a little after 1500.
The anchor didn’t set the first time we dropped it, but it did the second time. Like Brenton Bay, this was another very wide anchorage with plenty of space for lots of boats. However, this anchorage had a lot more traffic passing by, and it was a bit uncomfortable from the wakes. The anchorage:
Where we were on the route:
Sunset:
The moon was amazing.
Even late into the evening, there was a surprisingly large amount of traffic goin by.
Monday, October 6 – We’d thought the discomfort was from the wakes, but after the traffic stopped, we figured out that the anchorage was rolly and uncomfortable in and of itself. None of us slept well from the unpleasant motion. We were all up by 0515. The plan had been to leave at nautical twilight (first light; about 0645). However, the nearly full moon was so bright that it lit up the area enough that we actually felt comfortable navigating. In all seriousness, the moon was brighter right now than the sun was on very overcast days.
We started lifting the anchor up at about 0545. We used a flashlight to wash the mud off the chain and anchor. The mud was difficult to see, but we tried hard to do a good job because we did not want to have to clean mud out of the anchor locker later on. When the anchor came up, we saw that it had two clams stuck on it. We just left them, knowing they’d fall off by themselves. We had a little issue with the anchor swivel being stuck, which prevented the anchor from sitting properly on the roller. Eric manhandled the chain a bit and that resolved it. And by 0600, we were on our way — in the dark. Fortunately, the moon set right about the same time as daylight began to break.
In the early morning twilight, we passed by a monstrously large industrial facility of some sort, complete with an offshore platform. We’d seen it on the passage from Baltimore to DC, but we had a better view of it today than we did then.
Sunrise:
After the sun rose, it was another clear and sunny day with light wind. It was a tad bit cooler, only reaching the high 60s. We ran at 1875 and averaged about 7-knots. It was an easy ride; smooth and uneventful… until we got to the anchorage just outside the marina.
As we’d been warned, the anchorage was packed. The power boat show had just ended and the sailboat show was about to begin. Since this was one of the closest anchorages to where both shows took place, it’s where boats congregated. One of the things that struck us was that the majority of the boats were catamarans, and there were a lot of big catamarans. Oceananigans had told us that Annapolis was one of the few places in the Chesapeake that could accommodate large cats, hence cats tended to congregate here.
Back to the main story… we were frustrated to find that there were several boats that were anchored in the channel, which made navigating stressful and tricky for us as we had to dodge around boats that weren’t supposed to be there. We did notice that all the boats seemed to all be lifting anchor at once, so our guess was someone must have ordered them to move shortly before we approached. Passing by all the boats made us really glad that we were going to be in a marina.
Months ago, Eric had heard a couple of horror stories about boats anchoring too close together during the show. Eric had determined that he wanted to be in a marina, so he tried to book a reservation at the Annapolis Yacht Basin Company, which was one of the marinas where the show was taking place. The office had told him that reservations would open on September 1 at 0900. As instructed, he called at 0900 on the button to procure the reservation. They took his information and told him they would get back to him about whether they’d give us a slip. A week later, they called back and told us we could have a slip for the boat show.
Eric had been instructed to call when we got to the anchorage and he’d get the slip assignment then. This had made him a little nervous, worried that we’d be told at the last minute that we weren’t getting a slip, after all. In between dodging boats in the channel, he called. Much to his relief, we were assigned a slip and given directions on where it was within the marina. As we approached, we were sad to see it was fixed docks, and that our slip had a pylon in the middle of the fingers. We always worry about crashing into those middle pylons.
A marina staff member helped us navigate in and tie up, thank goodness. It had been kind of a hairy entry and we were grateful for the help.
By the time we were secured, it was 1230. Eric checked into the office, then spent a lot of time adjusting the lines to ensure that we were properly secured.
While we were adjusting the lines, we noticed that only one of the oysters had fallen off in transit; the other was still there! We just left it. It did eventually fall off by itself. Or maybe a bird ate it. Whatever the case, it disappeared on its own.
