It was a Great Day! We both slept well, the cave was comfortable and the waters were calm so it was a truly good night. We both got up at about 6:30 and while I was cooking the blog enhanced blueberry muffins, I took a dip in our gorgeous little cove. We both agree that this was the most beautiful place we have stayed to date. It was small and complete surrounded on three sides with loblolly pines. My dip was a suited one because of the other boat that was sharing the cove but it felt good to get the perspiration salt replaced with Chesapeake Bay salt! Back on the boat, I finished our menu out with an egg each and a slice of bacon. For a bit of variety, we had apple juice for our daily juice. (I am not sure why we drink juice every morning on the boat; we don’t do that at home!)
We raised the anchor without incident at about 8:30 and headed out into Leeds Creek. As we were motoring down, I noticed a commotion in the water about 15 yards or so from the boat. I realized that there were three dorsal fins of sharks circling doing something. I was surprised to see them but I had heard that they were in the bay. I have no idea as to their size or their type. A bit further down the creek we came across a tall dead tree with a huge nest perched on top. Next to the nest was a bald eagle. We could also see activity in the nest but could not make out who the residents were.
About a quarter of a mile further down the stream, there was a cove along the shore of which a castle had been built. The cruising guide mentions that rumor had it that a member of the Winchester family had built it. It was said that he was afraid of being assassinated so he built in secret passages and safe locations. It was behind trees and impossible to get a good photograph.
Out in the Miles River, we started north and with a nice northerly breeze, we put up the sails and began tacking on our way to the Kent Narrows. We had a vigorous sail for about two hours when the wind finally died. We motored on to the narrows. As we pulled into the narrows, the current pulling us towards the bridge was quite strong and required that we pay close attention to stay away. This is also the location where we bought the fabulous crab cakes that we had on the boat earlier on the trip. We motored up to the dock of the Fisherman’s Crab Dock Market and I ran in and bought three of their fresh made cakes. Unlike the majority of those that I have had in Ohio, these are 90% meat and 10% dressing. I ran back to the boat, pushed off and got to the draw bridge just in time for the 2:00 opening.
After passing through the bridge, we moved out into the Chester River headed for the village of Gratitude. There was a bit of wind so we raised our sails and began a nice downwind ride. After about 30 minutes, the wind again died so down with the sails. The weather was warm, the humidity was low and the sky was a dark blue. It was truly the most pleasant day we had experienced weatherwise. An hour or so after we dropped our sails, the wind reappeared so we again rigged for sailing. This time, we were able to sail all the way to our destination; including up to dropping our anchor. The town of Gratitude is the upscale neighbor of Rock Hall, according to the cruising guide. We bypassed the marinas and moved on up Swan Creek where we joined 7 other boats for the night. We were in a wide open river with what seemed to be good holding ground for our anchor.
We both donned our bathing suits and went over the side for a cool off. Back on the boat, we prepared the crab cakes and accompanied them with Alfredo pasta and Killians. We waited until just before bed time to have our apple caramel cake smeared with cream cheese icing. We lazyed around until about 9:30 before retiring. We had set the Wind Scoop upon our arrival but considered it cool enough that we wouldn’t need it through the night. There was a nice southerly breeze blowing with a forecast of 5 to 10 knot breezes from that direction until midnight then shifting to northerly winds with no speed indicated. The breeze was strong enough that we set our “dragging anchor” alarm on our GPS and monitored our movements for about 3 hours. To save the batteries, I shut it off before we went to bed. All was well, cool in the cave, good night’s sleep.
At about 2:30 I awoke to the sound of a halyard (rope) slapping against the mast and the movement of the boat indicated that the wind had increased. I normally would leave the slapping halyard alone but for some reason, I got up and went up to secure it. On the deck, I noticed that the wind had indeed shifted to the north and was blowing quite stiffly. I finished securing the halyard and was looking around when I noticed the boat swing an abnormal amount to port and the dinghy hit Panache’s side. It appeared that we were dragging anchor down the river. I checked the boats around us and none appeared to be in our path but we were definitely moving fairly rapidly. I turned on the GPS and saw that we had already moved well over 300 feet. Luckily, there was about a half mile of river between us and the first things that we could hit – probably 150 $200,000.00 boats in the marina that we had passed coming in. I quickly got out our second anchor and dropped it over the side. As we moved back I allowed the rode to play out. When I got about 30 feet of rode out, I felt the anchor take hold. I allowed another 35 feet of anchor rode to play out before I secured it to the front of the boat. (When anchoring, the more anchor rode you have out, the higher the probability of a secure anchor hold. The original anchor I had out about 30 feet.) I then tried to pull the bigger first anchor in and it came to the boat with all but no resistance at all. It was not set. I checked to see if it was somehow fouled but it didn’t appear to be so. We spent the next 45 minutes sitting looking at the GPS and listening for the dragging anchor alarm. It was not dragging so we went back to bed. As you might imagine sleep did not come easily. But, it did finally happen albeit a fitful sleep.
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