Pictures: pumpkins in the city park, Chesapeake City; view of a packed Back Creek, Annapolis, from a nature area with hurricane heights marked on the post; Ken changing oil in our Yanmar; banjo practice on a rainy day
We got treated to a Canadian “delicacy” in Chesapeake City. A young boating couple we met, from New Brunswick, brought out a bottle of Sortilege which is Canadian whiskey and maple syrup, and we sipped it while standing in the town park warmed from kettle-fires and lighted pumpkins. This is probably one of those memories that will stay with us for a long time! We had already sampled the food and beers of two restaurants that were within walking distance of the park and dock.
The next day we left early, just after the Canadians who are poking into small rivers for the next week so we probably won’t see them again for a while, and after the large skipjack BIGSBEE from Baltimore that shared the dock with us but that we didn’t get to see in the daylight. We got to Annapolis that day and anchored in Back Creek, a great place if you can find room. Immediately we got a phone call from Rick, who also spent time with us in Chesapeake City, asking us to join him and his crew at a bar near the main harbor. We cleaned up, got our dinghy into the water from where we store it when traveling, and went ashore so we could walk the 4 or 5 blocks across Eastport (the east part of Annapolis) and a bridge, to meet them.
Other times our journey is a more solitary one, and we are now three days out of Annapolis and have anchored in Solomon’s, MD, the St.Jerome Creek (not sure what town was there), and now Deltaville, VA without too much interaction with other boaters. Most of the travelers heading south left Annapolis either during or just after the big Sailboat Show there, which was two weeks ago, so we haven’t seen very many other cruisers.
Here at Deltaville we have been waiting out a storm. The day we arrived was warm and balmy, then we had one day of wind and drizzle. Today is miserable, cold and wet. Yesterday we got out to take a walk even though it was raining and we found ourselves at a maritime museum nearby and gravitated to a firepit that had a roaring fire in it. We talked with the person who had set it up and he was very interesting, explaining about the history of the museum (started recently, in 2003) and current activities (they are having a Halloween event in the woods with lights and sounds) and the boats (they have several boats in the water, oyster boats, crabbers and a replica of a shallop from explorer John Smith’s time).
One other event this week is worth mentioning. Before we left Annapolis we were hailed by a single-hander behind us and he was asking for help to get going out of the harbor. He had a 30 foot boat with an outboard motor. But he was having trouble with the motor. He asked for a tow while he got his sails up, to head him in the right direction. He immediately got stuck getting his anchor up while Ken tried to assist from the dinghy, then his roller furling gear pulled away from the forestay, but he finally got underway with both sails flying and threaded his way out after Ken towed for the first 75 feet. We saw him out in the bay as we left that day; we hope he gets things straightened out, as he was a little on the edge, maintenance wise!
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