Day 281
Friday, 06/18/21, was a short travel day, so that morning we didn’t untie Legacy’s lines from the transient dock at St. Michaels Marina, in St. Michaels, MD, until 10:00 am, and cruised into smooth waters and more perfect weather conditions. The wind direction had changed to come out of the south and had picked-up in speed, but not enough to hamper our cruising. After leaving the Miles River, we again traversed Eastern Bay on our way back into the Chesapeake Bay. Waves measured less than a foot again for our trip that day. We were definitely smart to wait for good weather windows when traversing the Chesapeake. We could see how this immense body of water could be a real bear to cruise in less than ideal weather!
We passed Kent Farms again as we left Eastern Bay, this time on our starboard, and once again approached Poplar Island to our southeast. When we reached the Chesapeake Bay proper, the winds increased to 12 knots, which increased the waves to 1-2 feet. These were peak conditions for some really good sailing, so we weren’t surprised to see a bevy of sailboats heeling back and forth across the bay, in the bright sunshine. Such a pretty sight!
As we crossed the Chesapeake Bay shipping channel, we saw many of what we thought were oncoming barges, freighters, and container ships up ahead in front of us. But, as we got closer, we realized that only the barges were moving. The freighters and container ships were stationary, and actually anchored in the bay on long, monstrous chains. Not sure why they were anchored, rather than moving…(?) Unless perhaps they were ahead of schedule to reach their destinations and so were just killing time(?)
As we continued further northward towards Annapolis in this narrow part of the Chesapeake Bay, we passed Shady Side, Mayo, Shelby-On-The-Bay, Hillsmere Shores, and Highland Beach, MD. Up in the distance, stretched the famous Chesapeake Bay Bridge (aka US Highway 50), where it connects the mainland to Kent Island, north of Annapolis. I believe I’ve heard the Annapolis area referred to as the sailing capital of the US, and I could certainly understand why. The closer we got to the city, the more inundated the bay became with sailboats of all types and sizes.
We wove our way through the sailboats into Annapolis Harbor, which is at the mouth of the Severn River, toward our marina for the next several days, Annapolis Yacht Basin Marina. The harbor master directed us to our slip in the very heart of the marina, right next to the marina office. Our slip even boasted stationary stairs with attached banister for us to utilize when boarding and leaving our boat, which is not common at most marinas, so that was a special treat for clumsy me. At first we thought we’d be protected from wakes in this slip, because of its location, but soon found we were wrong about that when Legacy began to rock and roll with all the harbor boat traffic, and continued to do so well into the evening. In fact, we rocked so much in that slip, we thought we were back at Vice City Marina, down in Miami… UGH! 🙁
After settling in and paying up at the dock office, we walked through the marina and into historic downtown Annapolis, which is located right there on the harbor, next to the renowned United States Naval Academy there in Annapolis. There were scads of restaurants and pubs to choose from, so we selected Middleton Tavern for an early dinner, then walked to Pusser’s Caribbean Grill for some after dinner drinks. I was enamored with the steep hills rising up from the harbor, upon which the town of Annapolis was built. Those hills made for some impressive scenery, but at the same time were quite the challenge to climb up and down! 😐 We definitely got our exercise during our stay in Annapolis, MD.
Position: N 38° 58.483, W 76° 29.070
Distance traveled: 29 SM
Total distance traveled: 3948 SM
Total marina nights: 257
Total nights at anchor: 23
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 28