mill creek.

oxford. 

we left denton at o'dark early to catch the outgoing tide on the choptank river and made our way to oxford and anchored off of town creek for the night.  we were starting to run low on supplies so we went to the oxford market for a few essentials and then spent the rest of the day just chilling out.  after dinner, it was off to the highland creamery for ice cream.  tom and i went wild and had two scoops each!  tom went to bed early so i took consuelo for her last potty run.  it's been a while since i've taken the dinghy out by myself and that 9.9hp yamaha is a bit heavy to raise up out of the water.  in any case, the funny thing is that since i so rarely do the dinghy runs by myself, i went out again later that night to make sure that the dinghy was securely tied.  i've had at least three friends whose dinghies have "run away" because they weren't properly secured so i kinda have nightmares about that.  heck, i even checked it twice!  the dinghy was fine.

herrington harbour south. 

at the fuel dock at HHS

we left oxford early and went back to the Bay via knapps narrows instead of going around black walnut point which was the original plan - tom worries about the shoaling at the narrows but it was high tide so we went for it, calling for a bridge opening.  i think, however, that we will avoid knapps narrows from now on until they dredge over there.  we were lucky not to meet any boats going the opposite way in that section where it is really narrow and shallow although if we did, i probably would have suggested that i take over the wheel.  i am better at playing chicken than tom is.  bullies are like that hahaha...  well, it might be a cultural thing, too.  i have this hierarchy background - if i am older than you, you must give way.  similarly, if i am bigger than you, you should probably get out of my way.  tom is much more polite and usually moves out of the way.  not me...  i was here first - YOU get out!  :)    we crossed the chesapeake to herring bay and into herrington harbour south marina to fuel up.  why there?  because the price of fuel was lower than anywhere else.  nevertheless, it was an expensive day.  200 gallons later and ass-heavy, we left for the rhode river.  

rhode river. 

surprisingly, the entrance to west river, which i always think of as crabpot city, had less crabpots than i had ever seen prior!  hmmm.....  that's not good!  i heard that it's not a very good year for crabs so far.  in any case, from the west river, we headed to the rhode river anchorage where we sat for a couple of days and relaxed.  or rather, we sat for a couple days and i worked and tom did projects.  on one of the dinghy runs, we noticed a sailboat had run aground on one of the points.  they had called towboat US but had already been waiting an hour so likely the towboat was out helping someone else.  they ran aground at high tide which means only one thing - that they'd dig in lower into the mud when the water runs out from underneath them and they'd be in a worse situation.  with the dinghy, we were able to push the bow to face the other way in hopes that when they raised the mainsail, together with our outboard and theirs, plus the wind, they'd be able to extricate themselves from the mud but, unfortunately, it just wasn't enough horsepower.  oh well, we tried.  towboat US finally arrived and muscled them out of the mud.  the two young people in that sailboat motored by later on and were profuse in their thanks.  well, you know, the last time we waited for towboat US was when we got hit by lightning - it was two and a half hours before the towboat arrived.  in any case, lots of reminiscing at the rhode river.  tom and i had both spent time anchored there on our individual boats before we even met each other so it was like an old friend.  i remember it when there were three islands.  now there are only two and the one is considerably smaller than it was.  everything changes.  

sunset at the rhode river

mill creek. 

the run to mill creek was another o'dark early start.  the forecast was for wind and thunderstorms mid-day.  the thunderstorm did come but it was not until late that night. and quite a display of lightning, too.  we were at john and heidi's on mill creek by 9:00 a.m.  it is always terrific to see old friends - they were my family when i lived in annapolis.  and when i got consuelo 13.5 years ago after simka died, they came to visit to see the new puppy and brought toys!  we spent a relaxing three days docked at their home and did all our provisioning - west marine and grocery store - wednesday was a VERY EXPENSIVE day!  mill creek, though, gets crazy with boat wake and as much as we would have loved to stay longer, the weekend came up and EVERYONE was going to be out bouncing us all over the place.  we had to tow the dinghy out into the Bay before we could even haul it up with the davit.  it was nice to get caught up and spend quality time - we will be back!  any way you look at it, tom and i still tend to think of annapolis as home. 

tadhana at mill creek

john and heidi's home at mill creek

denton.

we had never been on the choptank beyond the bridge.  there were a lot of workboats on the water just beyond cambridge where the river was still pretty wide but after that, it was quiet of boat traffic with mostly marsh and farmland and houses further apart from each other as the river narrowed.  it reminded us a bit of the wicomico river going up to salisbury - pretty, but not very interesting, unlike the pocomoke river with its cypress trees and black water.  the river had lots of sharp little turns so you really had to pay attention.  when tom called the dover bridge tender (it is an open-on-demand swing bridge), he seemed reluctant to stop traffic just for us but even with everything folded down, we are simply too tall.  the upper choptank past cambridge is actually typical of what we've seen on the rivers we've traveled on the Eastern Shore.   the marina guy at denton seemed very excited about our arrival.  people waved enthusiastically from shore.  not too much boat traffic around there obviously.  the "marina" we stayed at was actually in west denton, across the choptank river from denton.  it was really more of a tiny repair yard called mathews landing but next to it was the choptank river yacht club's dock with three pontoon boats tied up to it.  as it turns out, the "marina office" is on the other side of the town of denton and the person tom had spoken to on the phone earlier did not communicate anything to anyone so the guy who came out to help had no clue who we were.  not that it mattered really as tom and i are more than capable of tying up by ourselves, but these people must get something like two transients a year!  in any case, it was exciting for folks to see the "big" boat come in (we are hardly big) but in this part of the river, little jonboats and pontoons are the norm.  we were probably the main excitement of the day.

to get to the town of denton, you have to cross the route 404 bridge.  the building that stands out is the district court which is probably responsible for denton's (barely) survival.  like most Eastern Shore towns, it is struggling to stay alive.  the large red brick building that can be seen from the marina is apparently a correction facility which is across the street from the district court. 

our "rustic" dock

the excitement of the weekend launching

pretty steep ramp at low tide

the next day, we dropped the dinghy and continued upriver to greensboro, MD.  the choptank goes on beyond it but we didn't bother.  compared to greensboro, denton is a thriving metropolis.  as the river got narrower, it reminded me of the movie, "apocalpyse now." and even though it was a rather chilly day with occasional drizzle, you could smell the earthy scent of summer.  we could conceivably have brought tadhana further up the river - there was plenty of deep water - but there were logs and fallen trees and you had to pick your way.  it really is small boat territory and an Eastern Shore way out in the sticks kind of place.

 

abandoned railroad bridge left in permanently "open" position

diving platform?  the river is deep.

"apocalypse now"

i seriously doubt that we will find our way back to denton by boat again although we very much enjoyed our stay at the rustic dock and talking with the locals, one of whom was actually a  transplanted south african working at the yard with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor about the deadness of the place.  the area just didn't have that much of a call to return but we're glad that we went anyway.

it got hot.

the beach at little bay

little bay. 

we left on sunday for little bay.  how can one not love little bay?  it really is one of our most favorite places.  the stars are always amazing at little bay because there are no city lights.  tom went deep sea diving to inspect our running gear and clean out any growth.  just a relaxing day all in all, like sundays are supposed to be, except that, of course, i had to work that night. 

drum point light replica

solomons

the potomac behaved during our crossing.  solomons is so different from our southern bay - it is POPULATED.  the AIS was going nuts with all kinds of alarms popping up from boats docked whose owners had left the AIS on.  we anchored in our usual spot in back creek between the museum and calvert marina.  unfortunately, my password for calvert marina's wifi wasn't working but tom was being social again, seeing boats familiar from the deltaville area and i knew he was going to go visiting so i told him to make himself useful and get the password from friends docked at zahniser's.  i am never social and most especially so on a hot day so i happily stayed aboard and went back to work.  luckily, a slight breeze came in that night or it would have been absolutely miserable at anchor.

la trappe creek.

from solomons, we caught the tide running up the Bay to the choptank river.  it was HOT HOT HOT the whole passage.  the air was just STILL.  by the time we got to la trappe creek, tom already had his swimming trunks on, supposedly for a second inspection of the running gear.  we ALL went swimming that afternoon - what a relief!  again, we were lucky to have a breeze come up later.  my social butterfly tom ended up talking with some guy on the beach who knew tom's brother in oxford.  that guy's friend showed up in another sailboat and he turned out to be a member of the board of governors at the cambridge yacht club and invited us to dock there for free, which was really nice of him.  cambridge is another one of those places that suffered greatly when the economy went south and both the municipal marina and the yacht club are looking for ways to stimulate the boater traffic through cambridge to generate some income. 

no wind AT ALL, la trappe

sunset at la trappe creek

cambridge. 

we SO enjoyed cambridge.  our purpose there was to get together with friends, steve and charissa, before they moved back to illinois, and we got to spend two lovely days and several meals with them.  cambridge is actually a nice little town that is struggling to bring itself back.  the municipal marina is huge and there are a lot of empty slips which is too bad because it is a very nice marina, not too far from town, and there are shops and restaurants for those so inclined.  it really does need to advertise itself better as a cruiser destination. lots of great old houses along the river for those interested in architecture and stuff like that.  unfortunately, unlike tom, between work and company, i didn't get to spend too much time exploring cambridge although i did manage a little bike ride around and found the farmer's market and wound up talking to a retired waterman for a bit.

deltaville

we arrived deltaville on a sunday and thought that we would stay a few days just to pick up mail, get cleaned up, do a few boat projects, move things to and from the storage unit - that sort of thing - but we ended up staying a whole week because tom wanted to help a friend move his sailboat from deltaville to the corrotoman river and that didn't happen until the next saturday.  the other thing was that tom thought it would be nice to get caught up with the neighbors as well since our plan was to leave again for the northern Bay and not return until six weeks later.  well, i just have to say that tom's social life for us adversely affected my work life - remember i still work???  i'd be up all night trying to catch up with the work i missed and then awake again early the next morning for more of the same.  don't get me wrong - i LOVED seeing all of our friends but there simply aren't enough hours in the day! 

i wondered about my two ducks and it kind of made me sad not to see them.  there was one drake swimming around our area of the marina but quite frankly, i can't tell one duck from the other so i wasn't sure if it was "my" duck.  however, on friday evening, five days after our return to deltaville, the drake showed up on the dock behind TADHANA and demanded to be fed - obviously, he was "my" duck, at least he thought so!  the next morning, he showed up again with my little brown hen, my gentle little mama duck who only chirps and never quacks like her boyfriend.  they must have some kind of communication system - did he tell her that i was back?  how did he tell her?  in any case, i was really happy to see her but there were no ducklings in tow so i guess that didn't happen this year either.  they hung out with us the whole weekend and people who walked by were amused by the bowls and at how unafraid they were of both us and consuelo.  i hated to leave her again but i guess that is just the way it is.

sunday morning was our usual pancakes and bacon breakfast and then we got ready to leave for little bay.  tom's plan was to do some deep sea diving over there and check our running gear - he said we lost some RPMs and that it's been a bad year so far for growth so best to check.  the weather is good so it will be nice to be back at our lovely little bay - on a sunday when everyone will be leaving.  it's great to be underway again :) 

obligatory sunset pics from slip G-30 at regatta point marina, our home for the last two years.

clean-the-bay day at tangier island.

tom had made an announcement at an MTOA rendezvous back in march about the clean-the-bay day at tangier island on saturday, june 7, 2014, and several members had expressed an interest in going, probably because they were not sure what clean-the-bay day ACTUALLY entailed, however, it sounded like a good excuse for a cruise.  we arrived on a thursday, the day before everyone else so that milton would have help getting all these boats docked. we also wanted to reserve the bulkhead slips for the bigger boats - milton's reservation system at parks marina (there is no reservation system!) could use some tweaking.  tom actually had me print up signs, however,  the thing with making signs is that you are supposed to post them.  tom had a radio show to do which he did at milton's house using milton's phone - this is tangier island - cell phone black hole - thinking that he was going to put up the signs AFTER his radio  show.  luckily, the sailboat that took the main bulkhead slip while no one was paying attention only stayed for lunch and then left but he stiffed milton the $5 for the brief stay.  what a jerk....  anyway, as soon as he left, we put up the signs.

the boats started arriving on friday but there were other boats not in our party that were arriving as well so it got pretty busy at the marina.  milton is NOT supposed to be doing all this work!  so we were kept very busy helping him out.  let me tell you that when the current runs fast at tangier harbor, it can take you by surprise  so if you are trying to help a boat dock, it's a long wait in the hot sun while the boat tries ten times to get into a slip sideways before you even get to touch one of its docklines to help!  there was one guy (not from our group, thank goodness) who said that he would wait for slack tide and come back and he went off and tied up at the ferry dock.  milton sent tom over to ride back with him and handle dock lines.  we finally got him in but man.....  there was a lot of shouting and arm-waving going on.  it was all very entertaining....

four brothers was having free ice cream from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., something they do every year the evening before opening day.  since we were all adults, it was okay to have dessert first and then a group of us had dinner together at lorraine's that evening and ate absolutely way too much.

the next day, saturday, was clean-the-bay day.  we all met up in front of the general store at 8:00 a.m. along with some of the locals and were issued large orange plastic bags, gloves, and reaching tool grabbers.  

john pruitt, the guy in charge, gave instructions about being careful to avoid boards with rusty nails, etc. and then they set us loose in the marsh to pick up trash.  broad-brimmed hats, sunblock fishing shirts and high rubber boots were the standard uniform of the day - every cruiser seems to have these on board.  it was a hot day and it was nasty, dirty work - lots of smelly dead fish around, too, but at the end of the day, one really felt good about picking up all those bottles, cans, plastic bags, light bulbs and all manner of detritus that the tides had brought in and the marsh looked the way it was supposed to look once more.  loni and carol moore of tangier island had all of us in their home for hotdogs afterwards.  there really was a general good feeling all around about having, in some small way, done our part for OUR bay.  everyone dispersed after lunch to do their own thing and then the group got together again for a family-style dinner at hilda crockett's chesapeake house.  5:00 p.m. is last call at the chesapeake house which takes some getting used to when one is not a farmer (or a waterman).  tangier is a dry town and no, you do NOT bring your own wine to dinner.  i suspect people were already drinking on their own boats at 3:00 p.m. (or earlier) anyway after all that hot, sweaty work tramping through mud in rubber boots.  everyone seemed to have a healthy appetite :)  

MTOA PARTICIPATION IN CLEAN-THE-BAY DAY 

tom and i have had a very special relationship with tangier island for the longest time and we were very happy to have been able to share a little bit of this with friends and members of the MTOA.  as for milton - we worry about him.  he does too much and he doesn't ask for help and even if you offer it, he is reluctant to take it.  but it is obvious that he loves what he does and is frustrated by the limitations of his ongoing health.  he said something to the effect of "well, just kill me now if you won't let me work" and i can certainly understand this.  the best that we can do is to bully him into letting us help when we are visiting. 

always spectacular sunset at tangier 

little wicomico river.

we had planned to stay at st. mary's one more day and then leave for tangier island on a thursday but the weather gods had other plans.  cruisers are generally familiar with the notoriety of the mouth of the potomac river and, basically, one treats it with some respect as it can get pretty mean.  tom thought it would be best if we crossed the potomac a day early, while the weather was good, to get over to the VA side and then leave for tangier island from there the next day.  i had no violent objections - when it comes to weather, tom is the geek, and as i have said before, tom is also mr. safety. that works just fine for consuelo and myself.  the plan was to round smith point and go into the little wicomico river, the entrance of which is narrow, shoals easily, usually has a bunch of little boats with men fishing off of them who think they have the right of way (well, they do - sorta) scattered throughout, and is flanked by rock jetties on either side that could tear your boat's hull apart.  oh, did i mention the current?  in any case, it was NOT like that when we went through. 

the channel at the little wicomico behaved

we went up the river and anchored in front of a friend's house.  tom and marie armstrong are delightful people and they invited us over for dinner.  their home is fairly new and they didn't have a dock YET.  they did, however, have a PVC pipe sticking out of the water to mark where the dock would end once it got built.  we used the neighbor's dock instead - nobody home.  

tadhana in front of the armstrongs' home

we had a storm come in late that night.  tom stayed up for it but i just slept through the whole thing.  he didn't get to bed until past 1:00 a.m.  and then at about 4:15 a.m., someone threw us a horrific wake!  it was awful - things flew all over the place!  tom thinks it was done on purpose - it was so unnecessary.  some people are just thoughtless, or just plain mean. 

we had high winds the next morning and we weren’t going anywhere. i just went straight to work - on the day that i had requested off because i thought we were going to be in tangier and i wouldn't have an internet connection at my desk.  tom studied the weather and finally told me that it wouldn't be until at least noon or even 2:00 p.m. that we would leave. he later amended that to possibly 5:00 p.m.!  and this is the interesting part - it finally dawned on me about how our lives have changed, about how flexible we are, about how we DON'T HAVE TO if the weather isn't cooperating, about how we don't really have to be anywhere at a set time, and that it doesn't matter whether it is a weekday or a weekend - we can do anything we want.  it usually takes about 3.5 to 4 hours to get from deltaville to tangier, but we were at smith point which was a lot closer and it was only going to take us 2 hours from there.  during the season, the days are longer and dusk is more prolonged, stretching out the light.  we had always given ourselves plenty of time before but the truth is, we could get into tangier in the dark and would have been just fine.  in any case, milton called to say don't leave before 2:00 p.m.  you kind of have to listen to the watermen - they know about these things.  we ended up leaving at 4:00 p.m.  tom and marie shook their heads and thought we should stay, but the wind usually lets up in the late afternoon on the chesapeake.  it was still a bit windy but nothing like it was that morning.  we knew it was going to be bobbly leaving the little wicomico but beyond smith point light, it wasn't uncomfortable at all.  milton called again on the radio to find out our ETA and said that between the current being pretty strong and a big sailboat sticking out and in the way, it would make getting into "our" slip a bit tricky but that he would be there to help us tie up.  we got in just past 6:00 p.m. and the current went slack and started up in the opposite direction so no problems at all, and i had all these lines ready to deploy for every contingency, too!  but it was all good and then milton had to run and get dressed as it was graduation day for tangier island's latest crop of scholars - all seven of them!