May 6 7 Herring Creek MD to Fairview Beach VA to Washington DC 41 7 and 38 8 Miles

We got underway from herring at 6:40 to avoid low tide a few hours later. There was no wind to speak of. Rivers often provide poor wind though last nights interval of 35 knot gusts cant be denied. So while we had our sails up both days, they gave us only a few tenths and only briefly; it was a motoring day.

We heard what sounded like explosions. I thought it might be coming from our boat but Lene reassured me it was far away, like last nights thunder. Then came a voice: "Sailboat heading north on the Potomac off Cobb Island, this is Range Boat 4." I acknowledged and he asked me to switch to channel 12 which I did. He asked if we had paper or electronic charts and I said "Both". He said they were conducting naval gunnery exercises and the deep wide channel in the center of the river is where the shells would be landing. He asked me to check my charts and pointed out five navigation aids that hug the Maryland shore.  I should thread our way to and through them. We complied cheerfully and while the water was a lot shallower than center channel, it was never less than 12 feet. We heard many explosions, seeming to come in pairs, about two seconds apart: the guns report and the shells explosion upon hitting or its fuse setting it off. This is the orange topped Range Boat One, at the other end of the range, who stopped a crab boat that did not have its radio on.

We passed this nuclear power plant, the smoke or steam rising from it telling the tale of the days wind.

We crossed under the Nice Memorial Bridge on which Route 138 runs.

Once again, with our early start,  we went further than originally planned. The guide books describe anchoring in the Port Tobacco River, which flows into the Potomac from Maryland. It is about four miles wide at its mouth and perhaps four miles deep to the village at its narrow end (approximately the dimensions and triangular shape of Hempstead Harbor in Long Island Sound), but most of it is considerably less than six feet deep though there are large areas on both sides near the mouth that are 7 to 9 feet deep, where we could anchor. With winds (though light) predicted from the South, there would be little protection in those areas. Lene discovered a broad underwater plain on the chart, about ten to eleven feet deep, on the Virginia side of the river, near what the chart described as Fairview Beach, about ten miles further upstream and far outside the channel. This likewise provided no protection from wind or waves -- except from the south.
This place was not listed as an anchorage by the cruising guides, but it was very advantageous in dividing the 80 miles to the District of Columbia into two nearly equal passages. The chart described the bottom as "s sh" meaning sand and shells, which is good for anchoring. I asked friendly Range Boat Four about it. He said he had used it so we did too, and the anchor held so well that we had to use ILENEs engine to break the anchors hold on the bottom once we got its chain tightly straight up; the windlass was not strong enough. We were the only boat anchored and had lots of swing room and potential drag room but the scattered thunderstorms missed us and we had a quiet night. The next day we left at 6:30 to catch favorable tide most of the way, making seven knots instead of four. Again, motoring, except when the engine stopped for a few minutes and I had to switch fuel tanks. We passed this strange and unmarked buoy farm on the Maryland side.

The Potomac is huge - long, broad and deep -

and much of its shorelines are  undeveloped though some nice houses are built on the bluffs overlooking both sides, including this old one -- Mt. Vernon -- George and Martha Washingtons house, to the left of the big white tent, about ten miles from DC.

Except for the crab boat and one other trawler heading south that we passed near the end of our two days, we saw no other boats except for small runabouts and an anchored derelict boat during our almost 80 miles combined, until we got within ten miles of the Nations Capital, where the waterway had ferry traffic.

The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, which our charts said was a "bascule bridge under construction", caused us some consternation when we first saw it from five miles downstream. Bascule bridges, after the French word for see-saw, are designed to be opened and from the distance it looked low, so we tried to call on channels 16, 9, and 13 to get an opening, but with no response. Lene then read that it requires a twelve hour advance notice for opening. Oh no! She got a telephone number and called. "Yes, but you are in luck, we are opening for maintenance at 11:30 tonight" was the response. Im saying to myself that this cannot be. We will be having a ten hour wait and then have to enter a new harbor in the dark!!  We were told that this new bridge has so much vehicular traffic that it opens only at night. Finally we learned that its vertical clearance, at the white part to the left, which does open, is 70 feet; it is a high bridge that ILENE can pass under without its opening. I had assumed, that all new bridges over major waterways would be at least 65 feet high and many low bascule bridges are being replaced with new high ones so it made no sense to build a low bridge in the 21st century. But it sure looked low from a distance.
We refueled and then docked at the Capital YC, which is under reconstruction, with a series of temporary walkways between the docks leading to its temporary clubhouse in a former motel. We are at the furthest end of the furthest dock, making for a long walk to get out or to the showers, but the most remote dock is a good place for the kitties to roam. We immediately found both the staff and the other boaters here to be quite friendly and helpful. Free coffee, a map with the directions to the supermarket, etc.
Our first afternoon I spent faxing and Fedexing a document to my daughters attorney in Vermont who is helping her sell the riding academy where she has lived and worked for over ten years We also provisioned at a nearby supermarket, washed the topsides and, after dinner aboard, watched a couple of hours of "Wolf Hall" via the Clubs wifi in the clubhouse.
I also contacted my friends, Bob and Maria, who invited us for dinner at their house on Saturday night. I have known them since I worked with Bob in 1970. We last saw at about this time of year in 2006 when they drove to Annapolis to meet up with us there. We are looking forward to spending several sightseeing days in this beautiful city.

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May 15 16 Colonial Beach VA to St Marys MD and Lay Day There 35 5 Miles

Cool last night. Lene likes fresh air but we kept the hatches and ports closed. We got a late start this morning, 9 am, and it cost us adverse tide until the last eight miles up the beautiful St. Marys River, which was a delicious engineless broad port reach to Horseshoe Bend, with diminishing wind that gradually slowed us from eight to four knots as the headlands on either side cut off the wind. Before this, out in the Potomac, the propeller rattle reappeared and we motorsailed with main and small jib. It was slow at first with light wind and then there were 25 knots, but on our nose, requiring us to beat our way down the Potomac. It was Friday and we saw our first substantial river traffic. A tug was pushing a heavily laden barge in Kettle Bottom Shoals Channel. I called and he asked me to stay outside the channel, which I had planned to do anyway. Also about four cruising sailboats and about ten fishing boats dragging vanes to spread out their lines; they take up a lot of room but we had no close calls. Your photographer was inattentive; sorry.
Horseshoe Bend is roughly circular and about two thirds of a mile in diameter, with water in the teens almost to its edges. On its SE side, near where we anchored in 16 feet of water with 100 feet of snubbed chain, is the waterside sailing center of St Marys College. We are center right. Lots of kids out on skiffs, SUPs, and kayaks. Free use of the schools dinghy dock. A most welcoming place. The school is celebrating its 175th anniversary and has only 2000 students; Lene and I attended much larger schools. St. Marys is

an "honor" college of the University of Maryland. It has the only eating facility in the area, its cafeteria, where you can get all you can eat for $13 for dinner. But with graduation on our lay day, we had their last supper, burgers and dogs. We actually attended the graduation ceremony, why not.  Rashad Robinson, director of The Color of Change, a million member strong on line civil rights group,  gave an address and received an honorary doctorate degree. We stayed until the roll call of the names of the 430 scholars who were awarded their BAs was begun and then toured the campus, which was mostly locked up. We could hear but not see the speakers and a lot more people were seated to the left. The Bend is in the background left. A lovely setting.

 Across the road from the college is "Historic St. Marys City", which was the capital of the Maryland colony from 1636 to 1695, when they moved the colonys capital to Annapolis. Dont get this place confused with the St. Mary on the St. Marys River at the southern edge of Georgia, where we celebrated Thanksgiving.

This is the frame of "a lawyers house" in the former, and possibly future, historic city. It is there to mark where the house was. If they get money they plan to rebuild it as they have some of the houses, stores, a barn a church and the meeting house.





One of the best features is the Dove, built to resemble  a supply ship that accompanied the settlers in 1635. This one has a diesel, hidden away in its bowels, and GPS as backup to its octant. It actually sails, once a month, in the St. Marys River, and once a year it goes further, such as across the Bay.

Here is the Doves Bosn, Jeremy, a retired navy corpsman. We enjoyed talking with each other.

The colony was founded by Catholics who created the first experiment in what our Constitution now calls "the free exercise of religion". But colonial rule was influenced by the religious war in England between Protestants and Catholics, and the experiment was short lived, when the tides of the war turned.








Here is my land docent, (Is it Gretchen, Im so sorry I forgot your name and Lene discarded the paper on which I wrote it!),

soon to graduate from St. Marys with a Masters in Education and return to teaching HS history. The Historic City might become another colonial Williamsburg or Jamestown  but is suffers from a somewhat remote location. They are conflicted between two methods of restoration. The expensive way requires mega doses of expert historians to get it right and craftspeople with knowledge of  and access to period materials and tools. Much cheaper is to erect a structure that looks kinda like what they think the old building looked like. A complicating factor for them is that the land was put to other uses in the intervening centuries, such as a tobacco plantation with its own greathouse in the 19th Century.
I had never heard of the St. Marys settlement and it is a very interesting place to visit and easy for sailors, near the mouth of the Potomac.

Our last night, we experienced a 35 knot thunderstorm. I put on instruments and sat in the cockpit to check against dragging, but we were not, and once having sustained winds of that strength, we relied on the fact that the anchor had dug itself in deep, and called off the watch for the duration. Just a bit lumpy out there.

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Deep River CT to Annapolis MD via the C D Canal September 18 21 on Pandora

Last time I sailed Bobs Pandora, another of the Saga 43s, was in 2011, from Norwalk CT to Mystic CT. (See "Local Peripateticms", posted July 3, 2011). That was our boatless summer while ILENE was on the hard in Grenada. This time, it was the start of Bobs trip south where we may meet up with them in Florida, and so the trip was a rehearsal for our making the same passage, early in October, aboard ILENE.

For this trip we were joined by Jim, who has more ocean experience than both of us, and is a very personable guy. Bobs idea was that his wife Brenda, should join him part way to Florida. This put Lene of the same mind: Why cant we do that too? Luckily, Jim has agreed to accompany me for this first leg of ILENEs cruise, next month, so Lene and the kitties will drive down and join me in Annapolis. Jim recently sold his Saber 38 foot and thinks he wants to buy a Saga; wanted to find out how these boats feel in the ocean. He got half of that experience on Pandora -- the motion she has when the wind is aft the beam. Yes, with excellent weather forecasting by Chris Parker, and a willingness to change our departure date twice, we had a perfect weather window, with following winds and seas except for light winds the last seven hours, the second short leg, from the anchorage in Chesapeake City, MD to Annapolis, where Pandora now rests in Jims slip. ILENE was also offered the use that "free" slip upon our arrival except that the condo has a very strictly enforced rule against pets, including guests pets and including cats. So we have made reservations at Bert Jabins Marina, across Back Bay from Jims place. This is where ILENE was when we bought her, back in November 2005. If we get so lucky with a weather window on ILENEs passage as we were this time, I will simply turn the boat around for a few minutes, so Jim can get the feel of a Saga beating to windward.

We left the dock at about 4 pm on Thursday. I had the helm down the Connecticut River into Long Island Sound passing old favorites that we did not visit this summer: Hamberg Cove, Essex and North Cove of Old Saybrook. We headed  a bit to port to pass through The Race and around Montauk Point, making the rounding at about 11:30 pm. My nighttime off-watch preference was honored -- from 8 to midnight, when I am at my most tired condition. So I awoke after we had rounded and had reefed the main. From Montauk to the buoy off Cape May, NJ, which we rounded at about 11:30 the next night, it was 198 nautical miles. The furthest we got off shore was a point about 35 miles south of Long Island, the same distance east of the Jersey shore and about 45 miles SE of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
 
The scariest part for me was as we were rounding Cape May:  I had just risen from my good sleep and my lack of familiarity with Bobs newer chartplotter, with many more functions, meant I really did not know where we were. Bob stayed with me until we got up to the clearly marked shipping channel up Delaware Bay and I hugged it, just outside its north side, all the way up the Bay, giving the big freighters coming the other way the entire width of the channel.

Thursday night it was quite cold but no so bad that a long sleeve shirt, fleece and foul weather gear were insufficient to be comfortable.  The second night was not so cold.  We all wore life vests with harnesses and were tethered to the boats strongpoints whenever in the cockpit. Bob figured that we averaged 7.1 knots which is quite impressive. Much of this time, during daylight hours, the winds were strong and we furled the small jib and ran under only the reefed main, at speeds of up to eight knots.
The wind built up the seas, which raced and overtook us from behind. The bigger ones were over my head standing in the cockpit, until they caught us and lifted us up out of their way while whooshing under us. A couple of them entered the cockpit from the rear, over the swim platform, which is only about 16 inches above the water, putting a few gallons on deck, which drained out immediately over the same open stern that admitted them. When my sneakers got wet during the first such wave, I switched to a dry pair of socks and my sea boots so it was no problem.

Here is  sunrise over the west coast of New Jersey, Saturday morning as we were sailing up Delaware Bay with the tide.

Bobs boat is meticulous and fully equipped. He is a self confessed obsessive perfectionist when it comes to his boat and it shows. When we stopped to refuel, Pandora got a washing. The dew was mopped up the next morning. Here is Pandoras new Rocna anchor, rolling on new rollers attached to the shiny new apparatus. It hangs lower but further aft than ILENEs starboard bow anchor.

Jim with a bit of the rum punch.

It held very well in the mud of Chesapeake City.  We stayed there from about noon on Saturday until our 07:00 departure on Sunday morning. We toured the tiny quaint old town, partook of some free food and wine at a wine and food festival, ate ice cream, tried to visit the museum (but it is closed on weekends), took naps, enjoyed some rum punch and had dinner ashore.

Bob with same.

One always learns from sailing with others on their boats. I also learned and have downloaded to our I-pad, a much better weather app called "Pocket GRIB".





We were very well fed throughout, (Thanks Bob!) including delicious boat baked dropped biscuits and honey with our morning coffee.

The only thing that could have been better for me was visibility.  Bob likes to keep the dodger front closed, and connected to the bimini with side flaps down when sailing. Despite excellent new clear plastic, this impeded visibility due to my older eyes. It required me to poke my head out the sides to check for approaching vessels. Also with the RIB inflatable dinghy inverted, mounted under the boom, partially deflated and lashed down securely there, while safety was improved (no chance for one of those big waves to fill the dinghy with a ton of water hanging off the back of the boat), forward visibility was further impeded.
The captain/owners decision is always right, but my personal voyage would have been even more enjoyable with better visibility.

I know that Ilene will want one of these customized non skid floor mats. It is not a rectangle but wider at the foot than at the top, to match the area covered. The only potential problem with this is that the cats will like it too -- as a scratching pad! Now back to myriad activities to get ILENE ready for her cruise.

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