Saturday, May 16, 2015

Annapolis, MD - on a mooring

This guy was on a collision course with us. AIS warned us, we ducked just outside the channel
We had first thought of going to Rhode River and anchor out but the weather was so fair and with winds out of the south so steady that we pressed on to Annapolis so we could have a head start on Sunday for Chesapeake City which is 50 miles northeast of here.

The alternate dinghy dock at Annapolis, much better than downtown
Coming into Annapolis on a Saturday afternoon we found most of the moorings taken but there were still a few left. We picked one up and found that the price has increased to $35/day, wow. Annapolis has a high opinion of themselves and I guess they figure they can charge whatever they want. Well, we paid for today but we're sure not staying long. We took a dinghy ride in but used the secondary dinghy dock that most people don't know about, the one that even closer to the moorings than the usual one, by the Police boat. It's an official dinghy dock and it's always less crowded than the one downtown.

The downtown dinghy dock - dominated by boats that don't belong (the skiffs bigger than 13 feet) Where's the police when you need them?
Annapolis was packed. I think everyone had a dog too, about one every 10 feet or so on the sidewalk. We took a hike just to stretch our legs  but you could hardly move downtown, it was a Saturday afternoon on a warm day in the spring, what to expect?

We made it back to the boat before the line storm came through with lots of rain and watched the Preakness, we could get the Baltimore NBC station on our boat antenna. We plan on an early start Sunday to reach Chesapeake City in good time to claim a spot in the anchorage. The entrance has shoaled in but you can still get through if you hug the eastern bulkhead. Once in the anchorage you have 10 ft or so, then we'll look to Delaware Bay weather.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen any mention of moving under sail. In the Chesapeake, do you ever use sails rather than engine power?

Bob423 said...

I have yet to find the Chesapeake favorable for sailing during the times of the year I transit the area. There were boats out sailing today for example but not in the direction we wanted to go, north. We had a south wind today suitable for going east/west but not north unless you wanted to go 3 or 4 kts. And we had 45 Nm to cover.

We sailed in the Keys and sometimes in Biscayne Bay and often get an assist from our sails when under power. If we were just out for the pleasure of sailing and had no concerns on getting home before June, then sailing can be done. Unfortunately, after two months in Key West we are more concerned with getting home than sailing and almost the entire route is through the ICW, not conducive to sailing given the narrow channels and many turns, not to mention the bridges. If you do run aground in a shallow area, having your sails up can quickly make matters worse.

Now you can wait for favorable winds and go outside for an overnight run but even then there's a great temptation to run the iron genny if the speed drops below 6 kts given how far it is between inlets. However, we no longer do overnight runs when there's only my wife and I, others do.

When we go to Long Island Sound we mostly sail. There we don't care so much about destinations, just sailing but that isn't the case for us on the ICW. The same comment applies to our cruises to Maine in past years and, of course, the many times we've chartered in the Caribbean.