Shark Tooth Island Anchorage to Deep Point Anchorage at Port Tobacco

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October 10-11: We make a fast cruise up the Potomac to another anchorage on the Port Tobacco River, visit a historic church and cemetery, and get some rowing practice.

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The water was dead calm overnight and in the morning. Mother Nature treated us to another gorgeous sunrise.

It looked like a perfect morning to cover a lot of miles.

We got an early start to our day, mostly because Jason had to work — did I mention that he works from home and his boat is his home? — and we needed to be at our next anchorage in time for him to attend a morning video conference meeting.

I fed my pups and we motored them over to the Virginia shore instead of back to Shark Tooth Island. The beach there was smaller but they didn’t need much room to do their business. We motored back as soon as they were done.

Cruise to the Tobacco River

I stowed the dinghy and prepped for departure. Jason tossed me my lines and Do It Now drifted away from Seki-A. I pulled in my fenders as I went. I watched Jason dutifully hose down his anchor chain as he reeled his anchor in. When he started moving, I headed out, tracing much of my route from the day before without going into the channel again. For some reason, the crab traps seemed easier to avoid, despite driving almost right into the sun at one point.

When we were back in Nomini Bay, I let Jason pass me. He planned to get on plane and cruise at about 20 knots to get to the Tobacco River quickly. I would follow at my slower fast pace of about 14-15 knots.

I got a decent shot of Jason and Seki-A as they passed me in Nomini Bay. He was just starting to pick up speed here. I told him he needs to use this photo for his boat card.

It was a quick and easy cruise. We covered the approximately 28 nautical miles in just under 3 hours, only slowing for the No Wake zone near the Route 301 bridge, which had constrtuction work going on, and then again once we got into the Tobacco River. I caught up with Jason there. Since there was already a boat anchored in the Chapel Point anchorage, we moved beyond it to the Deep Point anchorage.

Jason dropped his anchor and put out his port side fenders. I’d already slowed down and put out my starboard side fenders. When he signaled me to come in, I moved Do It Now in beside Seki-A. He fastened my midship line and together we tied the other two lines. Rafting our two boats together had become routine.

Here’s my Nebo log for October 10, 2023. Download a PDF log file with more info. Track Do It Now on Nebo.

At Deep Point Anchorage

While Jason set up to get to work, I launched my dinghy and took my pups to shore. There was a small beach there that was part of Chapel Point State Park. A boat ramp led up to a parking area with portable toilets and garbage pails. We walked around a little and the girls did their business. Then we loaded back up and went back to the boat.

I honestly can’t remember how I spent the afternoon. Napping? Unpacking boxes and shuffling their contents around the boat? I know it wasn’t blogging.

In any case, when Jason finished work at around 4:30, I fed my pups early and we dinghied back to shore for a walk up to St Ignatius Catholic Church, which sat on a hill overlooking the river. Founded in 1641 by a Jesuit priest among the original Maryland settlers, St. Ignatius is the oldest Catholic Parish in continuous service in the United States. We walked through its old cemetery and looked at the stones, then walked around the church.

I left my pups tied up outside while we went in. It was a remarkably simple church — having been built back in 1798 and restored after a fire in 1866 — with uncomfortable looking pew boxes, stained glass windows, and an unremarkable altar. I found the candles that can always be found in a Catholic church, stuck a $5 bill into the collection box there, and lit a candle for my grandmother, as I usually do when I visit a church. I’m not a religious person but she was and I think she’d like to know I think of her when I visit a church.

After looking around, we left the church, collected my pups, and started the walk back down the hill, lingering a bit in the cemetery as the late afternoon light got really good.

Then we continued down the hill, through the park, and back to the boat ramp. The sun had just set when we arrived in the parking lot and a guy was there, waiting to lock up. He asked if we were in the dinghy and we told him we were. He was looking for the folks who had come in the car parked in the lot and wasn’t happy that he had to walk down to the beach to actually look for them. We went down to the dinghy, started it up, and motored back to the boats.

We cooked up dinner on Jason’s boat: some cascatelli pasta with sauce and a Trader Joe’s seafood blend doctored up with garlic, tomatoes, and peppers. I was starting to suspect that my next visit with my scale would not bring me good news.

The Ill-Fated Dinghy Ride

The next morning was calm and quiet. I did my morning routine, fed my pups, and took them to shore. There was a low fog hanging over the water and I nearly drove right up to a fisherman on shore before I saw him and was able to swerve away.

Jason worked, running meetings via Zoom from his boat. Again, I don’t know how I spent my time. I’m sure there was some unpacking and organization done. And probably a lot of time wasted spent on Mastodon.

When Jason took a break for lunch, we loaded up the dinghy, bringing along its empty fuel can, and headed upriver to a marina near the town of Port Tobacco. There was a restaurant there and (supposedly) fuel. The fuel can was empty because I’d only bought a small amount of fuel before starting my trip and the last of it was in the engine’s 0.7 gallon tank. Why a small amount? I wanted ethanol-free fuel and figured I’d find it at a marina so I didn’t want to fill the can with regular gas.

We had lunch at the restaurant. We were the only ones there on that Wednesday afternoon. The food was good enough but nothing special. I’m pretty sure the bacon-wrapped scallops and fish taco ingredients had come frozen out of a Sysco truck. When we were finished, Jason asked the waitress where the fuel dock was. She told us there wasn’t any fuel.

We went over to the marina anyway. That required us to climb and cross a relatively scary bridge over a narrow waterway. We had to carry my pups. There was no one at the marina. We walked back across the bridge.

Maybe there would be enough fuel to get us back.

Of course, there wasn’t. We’d gone less than a quarter mile when the engine sputtered and died. Jason got it running for another hundred yards before it died again and wouldn’t start.

We were at least a mile away from the boats with the tide coming in against us and Jason’s afternoon meeting starting in about 45 minutes.

So we rowed. The dinghy had oars and they worked well. Well, they worked well for one of us and you may be surprised to know that it wasn’t Jason. I suspect he didn’t have much practice rowing. I didn’t have a lot of practice, but I did have technique. I had smooth but relatively weak strokes that didn’t splash. Jason had powerful strokes that did splash. I moved us smoothly, but he moved us farther. We took turns, each rowing until either I was tired or Jason was getting too splashy. To be fair, he was a lot better by the time our boats came into view. I think that after another mile, he probably would have been good at it.

We tied the dinghy off on his swim platform and he went into Seki-A just in time for his meeting.

The Fuel Run

I prepped my boat for cruise. Do It Now was low on fuel and I’d need to get some. I figured I may as well go to the other marina, Goose Bay Marina, which we’d passed on our way into the Tobacco River, to get some diesel and fill the dinghy’s fuel can. I called ahead to make sure they had both kinds of fuel. Then I cast off, drifted clear of Seki-A, and headed back down the river with my pups.

As instructed over the phone, I called the marina on the radio when I got to the No Wake buoys. The fuel guy arrived in a golf cart with a kid and a huge Trump 2024 flag just as my boat slid gracefully to a stop in front of the pump. I killed the engine, stepped out with the midship line, and tied off. Honestly, I couldn’t have been any smoother.

He hurriedly grabbed my bow line and tied it. When he realized that I was alone on the boat, he said, “We don’t get many women driving boats by themselves.”

“Oh,” I replied. “That’s interesting.” I had already decided, based on the flag, that I wasn’t dealing with someone that I wanted to have a conversation with.

He started the pump and I put the nozzle into my fuel port. When he asked me how much I needed, I told him 40 gallons. “That’s good,” he replied. “The pump is slow.”

Oddly enough, I’d read in a review written four years before that the pump was slow. I wondered why they didn’t get it fixed.

While the fuel dribbled into my tank, I caught sight of a wastewater pumpout and asked if I could use it. I figured that I may as well pump out my tank while I was waiting; the level indicator was just turning yellow, indicating the tank was half full. Within minutes I had my fitting screwed into the wastewater port and the hose clamped onto it. He watched speechlessly as I got the pump going, hands free. When it was empty, I turned it off, put at least 10 gallons of fresh water into the tank, and then pumped it out again. I cleaned the pump nozzle in the water next to the boat, turned everything off, replaced his suction fitting, and neatly coiled up both hoses.

Keep in mind here that if he’d done any of this for me, I would have tipped him. But he’d rather watch the numbers on the diesel pump turn over in slow motion while his kid jabbered at him from the golf cart. I probably did it in half the time it would have taken him anyway.

Since the diesel pump still wasn’t done, I added a gallon of fresh water and some toilet chemicals to my toilet and flushed it all down.

Finally, the pump reached 38 gallons. I went to the nozzle and turned it off when he said it hit 40. I handed the nozzle back to him.

“I need gas, too,” I said producing the 2-gallon can.

We went over to the gas pump where I pumped 2.2 gallons of ethanol free gasoline into the can and capped it up.

“You can pay in the office,” he said, pointing.

“Can I bring my dogs?”

“Sure.”

He drove away while I put away the gas can, got Lily and Rosie out of the boat, and grabbed their leashes. We walked up to the office. I left my pups outside and went in. They had an ice cream freezer in there and I bought a Dove bar in my favorite flavor: vanilla with dark chocolate. (I would have bought one for Jason but it probably wouldn’t have survived the return trip.) I paid up, thanked them, and left.

We walked around a bit more before going back to the boat. The marina was also a campground that seemed to cater to longterm residents. There weren’t many people around. As I walked back to the boat, two guys pulled up with a bass boat on a trailer and prepped to launch it.

I got my pups aboard my boat, started the engine, and went out to cast off. There was no one around to help, but I didn’t need any help. There wasn’t much current or wind. I pushed off the dock as I stepped back onto the boat, then steered away from the dock in forward idle, adding a bit of stern thuster to make sure my boat’s rear end didn’t hit the dock. Then I was pointed down the fairway and driving away from the marina.

It took only 10 minutes to get back. Once I was past the No Wake buoys, I opened it up and sped back toward Seki-A, slowing down before I was close enough to wake it. For some reason, it was twisting back and forth on its anchor and I had trouble getting up next to it. But then I finally pulled in beside it and Jason was there to help me tie up.

It had been a good quick trip for fuel with the added bonus of a cheap pump out.

Last Night at Port Tobacco

Although I wanted to grill up the pork tenderloin I’d brought along for dinner, I could tell as soon as I opened the package that the Best By date was accurate — it stunk! So we had leftovers and a salad for dinner.

My stock of food was beginning to run low, but I had some non-perishables on board like mashed potatoes, soup, pasta, and sardines. I hadn’t expected us to be out so long. Jason and I had discussed destinations before we met up, but I didn’t realize we were going to go to all of them. I didn’t mind, though. I was having a blast exploring so many anchorages and getting so much use out of my dinghy. And Jason had plenty of food in his much larger refrigerator and freezer. It looked like there would be only one or two more anchorages ahead of us anyway.

In the meantime, we discussed our plans for the next day. Jason had to work in the morning, but we figured we could leave by around 3 PM for our next anchorage up Mattawoman Creek.