In preparation for our trip I installed a Single Sideband radio for long distance communication last winter.   However, I have not been able to make it work in spite of a number of attempts and have not been able to identify where I went wrong.  However, my friend Rick on Altair came over to Pandora a few days ago and we worked together to find out what was wrong.  After a good bit of crawling around,  one by Rick in a VERY tight spot, we discovered that the problem was very simple, as is so often the case.   It seems that I had inadvertently put the antenna tuner cable on the incorrect fitting.  There are two and I had picked the wrong one.  Oops!  We moved it and now I am in business.  However, the whole SSB thing is a bit like voodoo to me and I am still struggling with the many, many buttons and settings.  I was able to call Rick on his boat yesterday and got a good signal.  Today I participated in a cruisers net for the first time and had some luck.  I had a considerable amount of interference but was able to announce myself and hear the moderator, sort of.  This particular net meets at 08:30 EST on 8.152 MH each morning and includes boats from all over.  The advantage of the SSB is that you can speak to others that may be thousands of miles away unlike the VHF which is only good to perhaps 15 miles out or line of sight for the antenna.   Being the social sort that I am, I can already see how I am going to really get into this whole deal of keeping in touch with friends this way.   Another value, and certainly the most important one, is being able to contact the the Coast Guard if we run into problems.   That and the ability to talk to the weather router, Chris Parker, prior to setting out offshore are good reasons to have an SSB.     I am quite excited to be involved and to have my new shiny call sign, WDG5288.

Today we head to Camp Letts on the Rhode River near Annapolis for the SSCA gam.  We are excited about seeing some of our friends and making new ones.  The great thing about this group is that nearly everyone who attends spend a good deal of time aboard and most will be headed south like us after the gam and boat show.   We will also be seeing some of our Corinthian friends there which will be nice too.

Yesterday I visited the Chesapeake Maritime Museum here in St Michaels.  They have a modest but well maintained collection of classic watercraft.

I particularly liked this one.  Martha is a good example of an easily driven hull.  As horsepower increased over the years, designers were less concerned about having a slippery hull shape.  However, now that the price of fuel is going up all the time, that attitude is changing as well.  Having said that, the working watercraft in this area are more slender than in other areas that I have been so the long and narrow boats are still very much a part of the scene down here. This is a wonderful lighthouse of the sort that used to be very common in this area.  This one was moved here years ago as it was replaced with an automated bouy.  At one time there were dozens of these on the bay.  They are called screw pile lighthouses due to the fact that they were secured in place by steel posts screwed into the bottom.  This approach worked very well due to the uniform sand and mud bottom (not many rocks) that the bay bottom is composed of.

The “signature” boat type from this area was, and still in some places, is the Chesapeake Bay Skipjack which was the standard type used to harvest oysters under sail.   The museum has an active rebuilding program to preserve these wonderful vessels.This is a good example of a bridge-design working craft style that came into being as sail was being phased out and the current motor powered vessels were coming in.  The hull shape is very similar to it’s sailing cousin but it’s powered by diesel.Here’s a shot of her from a distance.  Not sure that either this or the next shot do justice to her lovely lines.  However, I like the photos never the less.

I climbed to the top of the lighthouse and enjoyed the commanding view of the harbor.  This view is of the inner harbor.
This is the view in the other direction and is where we like to anchor.  Pandora’s mast is just sticking up behind the red roof to the right.St Michaels is such a great spot to visit I hated to leave today.  Off to Camp Letts to learn more about what to expect as we head south over the next few months from those who do this sort of thing all the time.  Perhaps I can also learn more about my SSB too.

It’s Wednesday and we are enjoying 0ur visit to St Michaels MD.   It’s nice to be able to spend more than a day exploring an area and being here for three days is a real treat.  Yesterday morning Brenda and I went for a walk through one of the historic areas and enjoyed taking pictures of some of the lovely homes.  It’s nice to see a neighborhood where everyone takes good care of their homes.

We like front porches and use ours in Essex CT on a regular basis.  However, this area takes porches to a whole new level.   I particularly love the palms on this porch. 

This porch is nicely color coordinated too. 

Brenda particularly liked this wreath.  She’s all about details.
I liked the use of the flower border near the driveway.  Not a big front porch but a nice looking home.
This might be our favorite home in the area.   We have taken photos of it in the past.  Love those columns. This While we were walking down near the waterfront, we spied this lovely launch based on a Crosby hull, a style that is often used as a yacht club launch in a simpler configuration.What beautiful varnish work.  You can easily imagine having a small cocktail party on this table aft.  Note the beautiful hand water pump.   It looks like the owner keeps the brass polished too. As we were headed through Kent Narrows on our way to St Michaels, the Globo Surf used a short cut that goes under the bay bridge, we were, as always, struck with how close the mast head comes to the bottom of the bridge.  All bridges on the ICW are supposed to be built to a minimum 65′ clearance.  This one is 67′ I am told but it really looked close to me.  Yikes!!!  So, how close is close?  Our mast is 63′ and with gear on top, we clear most bridges with less than two feet to spare.   Not a lot of margin of error.  As we approached the bridge at high tide, and one that was a bit higher than usual, we decided to stop and have lunch at a local eatery and wait for the tide to shift and get a bit lower.   We enjoyed lunch overlooking a busy waterway in Kent Narrows. Unlike up north, where dock space is more at a premium, there are plenty of spots where you can pull up and get free dockage while you eat lunch.  In this case, we docked for several hours while the tide went down a bit.   I always like shots of Pandora along side on a sunny day. There was also a commercial packer for crabs and oysters.  I was able to get into the oyster sorting room.  That’s a lot of oysters.  Nice guys too. I expect that these could end up most anywhere, perhaps in an eatery near you. Anchored in a little harbor in St Michaels, we spied this kayak man/dog combo. I can almost hear the dog saying “When will we be there, when will we be there.  Look a duck, a duck.  I love this!!!”Oh yea, how about a still life with flowers, wine and binoculars? Today we will continue to explore and I expect that Brenda will make another visit to the local yarn store.  Thursday we head over near Annapolis for the SSCA gam.   Thursday night kicks the three day event off with a dink raft-up cocktail party.  It will be great fun and we are really looking forward to the weekend event.  After that, off to the boat show.

At the mouth of the Chester River and about 4 miles NE from Kent Narrows is a small harbor, Queenstown Creek.  The entrance is narrow and shallow but getting inside makes the nail biting worth it.   Actually, we almost didn’t make it as we ran hard aground on a sand bank just inside the mouth after bumping a few times on the way in.  The tide was running out and still about 90min from dead low which made any mistakes doubly problematic.

So, here we were, after a run back down the Chester River, at 6:00 pm and hard aground about 100 yards from our destination.  What’s  a traveler to do?  Hmm…

After a few futile attempts to back off of the sand bank, I did what any head scratching captain would do, I lowered the anchor the few feet to the bottom (probably not needed as we were firmly stuck anyway) and opened a beer.

A short while later another boat came in and took a slightly different path, with more water it seemed, and passed us.  Armed with the confidence of now half of a beer and the new knowledge of a better path, I put the boat in gear and powered forward.  Alas, we were off and into deeper water.    Free, free, free at last!!!

So, 100 yards later we were happily swinging at anchor as the sun set over the bay.  The view, perhaps the best yet.

Perhaps you are asking yourself why I would subject myself to such a tricky entrance knowing that the likelihood of running aground was great.  Since you asked, here’s why.  We began sailing, about 40 years ago, in small boats with shallow draft and I still love the secluded cozy anchorage from my catboat days. I am also hopelessly optimistic and am confident that after all low tides, there comes a high tide.   So, there you are, I have bared all.  Besides, running aground here is much different than where the bottom is hard and rocky.  It almost doesn’t matter.  Besides, it keeps slime off of the bottom of the keel.

This spot is really lovely and after dinner last evening, fillet mignon, farm fresh heirloom tomatoes, from a farm stand in Essex, with mozzarella and herbs and fresh boat-baked bread, we enjoyed the twilight from the cockpit.   We have been experimenting with baking peasant bread aboard from a recipe that we got from a baker in Old Saybrook near home.  He also sold us high gluten flower (we have 20 lbs on board).  We are making progress.  After dinner, when it was totally dark, Brenda and I climbed into the dink and drifted for a while looking up at the stars.  Not a lot of light pollution here.   The sight was really beautiful.  With the help of the program, Star Walk, on the i-pad we picked out a few stars and constellations.

A benefit of being an early riser is to see sights like this, with mist flowing over the water. 

I love the golden light early in the morning just before the sun comes up. The offending sand bank.  I didn’t clear it by quite enough.  Oh well.

We decided to cut our visit short in Chester Town yesterday so that we could avoid motoring back down the Chester River into the wind which was forecast to shift to the south and to take advantage of a late afternoon ebb tide.

However, prior to departing, we spent the morning  exploring the local streets and lovely architecture of the area.  Here are a few of our favorites.There is a very pretty board/brick walk along a portion of the river near the town dock. Brick has been a very popular building material here over the years. The owners of these two homes aren’t prisoners of tradition or perhaps they are just pissed off.  “I swear, if you don’t change the color of your home from that ghastly yellow, I will paint my home purple!”  So, there…“Betty Sue, how about a mint julep on the veranda?  Which one, you say?  Well, of course, I mean the west veranda.   I just can’t believe you need to ask, every time!”
Speaking of mint juleps and verandas.  It seems that everyone has a spot to sit and enjoy the sights.  This is a lovely old hotel in town, porches and all. They were advertising a fig daiquiri.  Is that a Southern drink?  Perhaps a Southern yuppie drink.
I do love porches and shade lined streets.
This fountain was recently restored.  Not so sure about the color, a really pale green, but it’s in a nice spot surrounded by magnolia trees.And, of course, yet another photo of Pandora.  This time, framed by the bowsprit of Sultana.
Well, that’s all for now.  In a few hours, when the tide will allow me to escape this very pretty spot, hopefully, we’ll head to St. Michaels, about 15 miles south from here.  We plan to stay put there for a few days prior to heading to the SSCA gam on Thursday.

It’s Sunday morning and the sun has just peaked over the horizon to begin what promises to be another beautiful day.  Yesterday we came up the river, all 20+ miles of it from Rock Hall with a strong southerly wind.  We did have to motor into it for about 8 miles prior to turning into the river.

The winds were running in the low 20’s so I was able to sail up the river under jib and then genoa alone.  While this photo of Pandora wasn’t taken yesterday, this is what it would have looked like had someone been along with us.  This shot was taken by Julie Palm of Altair took it when we were sailing with them coming out of the canal the other day. Coming up the river was very pastoral with farms lining both sides all the way up.   Some of the farms certainly looked like the farm wasn’t their primary business as the main houses were massive brick buildings with many chimneys. The current was swift and it shoaled up quickly on each side.  Staying in the middle of the channel and watching the buoys was a good idea.  Fish traps are common here too.  The concept is for a net to be stretched across the current to lead the fish into an enclosure as they try to swim around the net.  The birds perched on the poles much think that they work as they hang out waiting for a meal.  This was an interesting building as it appeared to be made up from two silos.  Pretty interesting design.  I don’t think that it was the main house on the property though as there was a main house nearby that was much larger.  As we arrived in town it seemed like everyone came out to greet us.  Very heartwarming.  We waved back only to later learn that it was Parent’s Weekend at Washington College.   Oh well…sA reproduction British Revenue Schooner was constructed here a number of years ago, the Sultana, and she gives day sails on the river.  She’s very pretty under way.   Some of the colors are a bit garish though.  Perhaps the British didn’t have Martha Stewart to advise them back in the 1700s.

And, even better looking in the early morning light today with some of the town’s historic buildings in the background.  I liked this motor-sailer that came in yesterday.  The current runs hard in the river and with the strong south wind yesterday Pandora didn’t know which way to lay on her anchor with the wind and current opposing.  Last night a cold front came through and the winds shifted from the south to the north.  These winds are supposed to hold for another day so we should have a fair breeze to head back down the river on Monday.

Coming up the river yesterday we were struck by some of the names of boats that were hailing one another on channel 16.   They went something like this…

“Incognito, Incognito, this is You are making me crazy calling, come in Incognito”.   They called several times and I was wondering if perhaps Ingonitio didn’t want to be found and found You are making me crazy a bit annoying.  Hearing that name repeatedly was bugging me.   Another one (and no, I am not making this up)was,  “Sail Away, Sail Away, this is Brave Heart’.  Were they telling Brave Heart what do?  Hard to say.  I could just imagine Sail Away heading in the other direction when they heard their name on the radio.  I wonder if they are able to sail together often or if they get separated?  Hmm…

Two other boats sailing in company that seemed to be a better match were Patience and Steadfast as well as Living the Dream and Just Chillin.  I guess that the addage “birds of a feather flock together” is true.  Well, at least when it comes to boat names.

However, fit together or not,  WHO IS ADVISING THESE PEOPLE on boat names?  I mean, really!!!   The other day a friend said that when they named their boat they said the name three times fast, as they would when calling on the radio, so that they could hear how it sounded.  That’s good advice.  Not sure that these folks got the memo.   Just guessing.

Today we have a few chores to do, including laundry.   The local architecture is lovely as many of the buildings date from the Revolutionary period.  In fact, we are planning to have afternoon tea at an old inn today.  More to come on that.

It’s Friday morning and I am enjoying the sights and sounds on the water anchored near Rock Hall.   The anchorage is fairly small with room for perhaps a dozen boats.   While the harbor looks large, much of it is very shallow, less than 3′ deep, as one of the boats traveling with us for a few days discovered yesterday when they circled around to anchor and came up short on a shoal.  Not to worry though as the bottom is soft here so any groundings tend to be gentle and short lived.  Such a soft bottom does cause one to take chances such as yesterday when I cut across a shoal to take a shortcut into the harbor. The shoal was marked as 5′, a problem as we draw just under 6′.  However, we were a few hours from low tide and I gambled that there was enough water.  It was a bit of a nail biter as I logged depths under the keel of less than a foot for a good portion of the run.  We made it though.

Birdlife is abundant here too and we even saw a bald eagle yesterday, two actually, and that was a real treat.  The last time we saw one was last summer in Casco Bay Maine where they are fairly abundant.

Last evening Brenda and I were invited to dinner aboard Peregrine by our new friends Dave and Libby.   We had them over for dinner earlier in the week and they returned the favor.  They also invited the couple from Canada, Dave and Alex of Banyan.   Brenda contributed her first loaf of “boat made” bread.  We were striving for a loaf with lots of big holes and while it wasn’t perfect, it was very tasty.   To make it even better we concocted a mixture of olive oil, garlic, oil, salt, pepper and rosemary from our on board herb garden.   This “garden” lives in the dink while we are under way and on deck when in port.  There is actually a great spot just forward of the dodger where it fits perfectly.  We looked hard to find a pot that would fit there.   Perhaps I will title this photo “still life with rosemary and dorade vent.”  Does sound a bit high brow.  Well, we are on the Eastern Shore after all. 

The view from Pandora is lovely, especially early in the morning.  Check out the duck blind nestled into the point, in the reeds.  If you look carefully, you can see a heron standing on top of the blind.

It’s interesting to see the various types of watercraft in this area and how different they are compared to those we are used to seeing in our visits to Maine.  Here, the waters are more sheltered, and a lot more shallow.  This boat, with a husband and wife team, was dragging for something, perhaps oysters.  They went slowly by several time and then pulled up the dredge.   Not sure that they had success.In the area of “hey, let’s put a random photo on Bob’s blog” department, erosion is a real problem on the lands surrounding the bay.  In the Sassafras River yesterday we saw this staircase, a particularly elaborate  structure that someone had built so that they to get from their home, way up on the eroding bluff, down to their dock.   I wonder how tough it was to get the permits?   It’s safe to say that it’s good example of “form following function.”    I wonder how long this will last after a few winter storms.  Hopefully, the pilings are driven down really, really deep.   Do those who grant approvals consider aesthetics?  Perhaps not. Today we will do a bit of exploring in Rock Hall and perhaps head up to Chestertown, which we hear is very pretty.    We still have a week until the SSCA gam near Annapolis.  As it’s not much more than 15 miles from here to Annapolis, we have plenty of time to do some sightseeing.

Well, typing away here isn’t giving me much of an opportunity to see the sights so I’ll sign off for now.