October 6, 2023: I begin a multi-stop tour of anchorages off the Potomac River with a buddy boater.
October 20, 2023 Note: I’ve been busy for the past two weeks, mostly hanging out with my friend Jason, who I joined up with at Smith Creek. Of course, I’ve fallen way behind on this blog again. I’m going to try to knock out a bunch of quick posts to bring the blog up to date while I’m comfortably tied up at the wonderful Leonardtown Wharf free dock waiting out weather. Let’s see how I do.
At Smith Creek
I woke early on Friday (October 6), feeling very hungover. Deciding that I needed better coffee than the stale stuff I’d been consuming, I threw away the remaining coffee in the container and opened a fresh bag. Well, kind of fresh. I’d bought it in April and it turned out to be only slightly better than the coffee I’d been drinking.
As my coffee brewed, I thought a little about how weird it was to have my boat tied up to a much larger boat.
I did my morning routine — coffee in bed with my pups, a few word puzzles, and social media catchup — before getting dressed, feeding my pups, and motoring them to shore to do their business.
I had a second cup of coffee with Jason before getting to work on the blog post about the previous day’s travel. He didn’t mind me working on it, and I’m not sure what he kept busy with while I worked. I finished before 10 AM and we talked about our plans for the day.
Lunch
There was a restaurant named Pier 450 POV that was walking distance from the marina we were anchored near. We called to see if they had outside dining so we could bring my pups. The weather had been crazy warm — warm enough for me to wear shorts — so eating outside would be nice. We finally got a call back from the restaurant to say that they did have outside dining. By then, we were ready to go.
I thought these might be puffball mushrooms, but I’ve never seen them grow quite like this before.
We dinghied over to the marina, tied up in an empty shallow water slip, and climbed out onto shore. (By the way, did I mention the marina was Point Lookout Marina and that I’d gotten permission to take my dogs ashore there?) Then the four of us walked the half mile or so to the restaurant along roads with wide grassy medians, lots of giant mushrooms, and very little traffic. We were seated outside and I fastened the dog leashes to my chair. The girls settled down quickly.
Jason and I split a dozen oysters on the half shell. I had a ceviche appetizer and he had a raw tuna poke bowl. All the food was great, although the service was slow with just one waiter for the entire restaurant, inside and out. There was no one else outside dining with us and I think it may be because they knew about the mosquitoes. It wasn’t horrible, but I got bitten a few times.
Moving On
Here’s Jason, washing his anchor chain as he uses his windlass to haul up his anchor. Fancy! (I have to dip and redip my chain and anchor in the water on the way up to get the mud off.)
We walked back, dinghied back to our boats, and prepped to leave. My main chore was stowing the dinghy, which was pretty easy with the new setup. (As I can tell you now, two weeks later with lots of anchorages under my belt, the new dinghy setup is a total game changer for me. I feel confident that I can stop and use the dinghy anywhere.) Then it was a matter of starting my engine, untying my boat from his, and pushing or drifting away. Jason then had to haul up his anchor, which he washed with a new anchor wash down setup he’d installed to get the mud off the chain before it got into the locker. When that was done, he climbed up into the helm and started off. I pulled into place behind him.
We had a short cruise from Smith Creek to St. Mary’s River, which was the next tributary up the Potomac. (I didn’t even start up my Nebo tracking software; the map below is hand-drawn on an Aqua Map chart.) I think it was about 11 miles. We cruised at about 10 knots, which was comfortable for both of us.
Here’s my view of Jason’s boat, Seki-A, as I followed it up the St Marys River.
Along the way, we passed the Maryland Dove, docked at St Marys City. This is a replica of a 17th century trading ship that sailed to the new Maryland Colony with another ship named Ark in 1634. It was difficult to get a photo of it from the angle we saw it, which was made even more difficult by sailing students scattered all over the river in tiny sailboats. It would be nice to see it under sail.
Pagan Point on St. Marys River
The main Horseshoe Bend anchorage close to St. Marys City already had a few boats anchored in it so we continued to the next anchorage, Pagan Point. It was a nicely sheltered anchorage with a tiny beach for me to walk my pups. Jason pulled in first and dropped his anchor. After positioning his fenders, he called me in. I maneuvered in beside him with my starboard side to his port side. Calm conditions and my thrusters made it easy again. We tied with three lines.
Here’s the map of our cruise on Friday, October 6.
Jason set up some chairs on the crazy huge forward deck of his boat, Seki-A, and took a daytime photo of our rafted boats. Mine looks totally tiny.
Before it got dark, I fed my pups and we motored them over to the tiny beach to do their business. (The routine is three times a day: morning, midday, and right around sunset. I have no desire to drive them to or from the beach in the dark.) The beach might have been on private property; there were signs of an old road that led up to a fenced-in field beyond the woods. But we didn’t wander and I picked up anything solid my girls left behind.
We had “snack food” for dinner: cheese, hummus, tabouli, nuts, fruit, bread, and a variety of dipping sauces and spreads. One of us opened a bottle of wine and we had just a glass each — I think Jason had been just as hungover from the previous night’s drinks as I’d been.
This time, we called it a night earlier. Weather the next day was forecasted to be windy and we had quite a distance to cover on the wide Potomac to get to our next anchorage in Breton Bay. The weather would get worse later in the day so we wanted an early start.
