8 October 2012 Solomons to Canoe Neck Creek, Potomac, Maryland
We didn't drag – it was a very peaceful night, but again very cold when we woke up and warranted full foul-weather gear as we pulled up the anchor.
We had a great sail for most of the day with 20 knot winds, but it kept raining on and off. The route that we took was south down the Chesapeake and then north-west into the Potomac River, so we had the wind from all sorts of directions, which made it interesting. It was very cold all day, but Glenys raised my spirits by making a fantastic spicy vegetable soup.
We sailed 25 miles up the Potomac and went into Canoe Neck Creek, in St Clements Bay. It’s a little shallow going into the creek, but we never saw a depth less than three metres and we anchored in the beautiful protected creek surrounded by farmland and trees – one of the nicest anchorages that we’ve been in while in the USA and even better, we are the only ones in here. Unfortunately, it was so cold that we couldn’t savour the marvellous ambiance, but disappeared down below to turn on the cabin heater.
9 October 2012 Canoe Neck Creek to Sycamore Point, Potomac, Maryland
We awoke to a very cold, overcast day with drizzle and mooched about for an hour before finally deciding to go. The 15 knot north wind was dead against us and, as we had a long way to go, we motored most of the way apart from an hour when the river turned west, which allowed us to sail for a few miles.
The weather improved after lunch and it was quite pleasant as we passed Quantico under the power cables stretching across the Potomac. We had a tentative attempt at entering Mattawoman Creek, but my bottle went when the depth gauge showed 2.5 metres and we still had over a mile to go down the twisting, largely unmarked channel…
We ended up anchoring in 5 metres of water about 200 metres off Sycamore Point in good holding and calm conditions – lovely.
10 October 2012 Sycamore Point to Washington DC
It was only twenty miles to our destination, so we had a leisurely start to the day with a lie-in for a change. There was little wind, so we motored the whole way and anchored in Washington Channel, which is less than a mile’s walk from the tourist attractions. It’s a pleasant anchorage, but noisy with the sounds of a major city, a nearby airport and we’re in the direct flight path for helicopters flying in and out of the Pentagon. They pass over head at around 150 feet and we can feel the “whop-whop” of their rotors deep in our chests.
Theft appears to a major problem in Washington and there isn’t a free dinghy dock, so everyone pays $10-15 a day to leave the dinghy at one of the marinas, which are all locked up tighter than a prison. We first went to the Capital Yacht Club, but they couldn’t accommodate us because they’d run out of security keys to get into the marina docks. They were a bit sniffy, complaining about the large number of yachts at anchor –there’s fourteen and they say that there’s normally only four. We eventually managed to get a dock facility at Gangplank Marina which was a bit cheaper and much friendlier.
We went for a long walk around some of the tourist attractions – Jefferson Monument, Lincoln Monument, Vietnam Memorial, etc. It’s all very spread out, but it was good to stretch our legs.
I was quite taken by a small part of the memorial to Thomas Jefferson. He was a very productive chap being a politician, architect and philosopher and there’s a quotation from a letter that he sent to someone proposing his own epitaph. It’s something that I never really thought about – what have you done in your life that you want people to remember you by? Perhaps that’s what drives people to want to be famous…
As night fell, it was a little bit windy with 20+ knot gusts and we were a little bit too close to an American yacht, which is veering around the anchorage. It’s a “Florida sailing caravan” with a high cockpit catching a lot of wind and to make matters worse they’re on a long rope anchor rode. Why on earth do these Americans like to anchor on bits of string?
11 October 2012 Washington DC
It was another cold day, meriting socks and shoes. We upped anchor and went to the end dock at the Gangplank Marina to fill our water tanks. It was so cold that Glenys had to put on her foul weather jacket while holding the hose pipe in the tank filler.
We struggled to anchor. We didn’t want to anchor by the side of the veering American boat and the first place that we chose, we dragged very quickly. After a bit of deliberation, we anchored closer to the shore and the anchor sort of held – Chesapeake hope and pray again. It’s funny how I still feel pressurised when we’re anchoring. I hate the thought that people are watching us being indecisive and not being able to anchor first time. I can almost hear them saying – “Huh, they don’t know what they’re doing.”
We walked into town and spent hours and hours wandering around the Natural History Museum. There are so many things to see that you could spend a few days there. By mid-afternoon, our brains had turned to mush with so much information, so we walked across to stare at the White House – not very interesting because it’s at the end of a very long garden. We decided to walk to China Town, but that was disappointing because it only covers one block. They have an impressive China Town arch, but I think that it should be called China Street.
The outboard motor conked out as we were motoring out of the marina, so we had to paddle back to the boat. I stripped the carburettor down and got it going again. I couldn’t see anything obvious, but I suspect that we’ve now got water in the fuel.
12 October 2012 Washington DC
We had a lazy start to the day and wombled up to the Air & Space Museum. (If you’re not familiar with wombling, it comes from the odd, but brilliant TV series “The Wombles” and is a verb. To womble or to go wombling is to do something aimlessly, not aiming for anything in particular, and not being stressed when you realise you haven’t achieved anything, which basically describes my life.)
We gazed in awe at the aircraft and space vehicles in the Air & Space Museum for a couple of hours and then retired to McDonalds for some brain food – well, fat and coca-cola actually, but it gave us enough energy to walk up to the Capitol Building, which was impressive.
On the way back, Glenys persuaded me to go into the National Arboretum, which was surprisingly good. We then went into the “National Museum of the American Indian” – a bit of a mouthful but there was a brilliant section about the role of the horse in America. I was amazed to discover that horses were extinct in North America until Columbus imported twenty five horses in 1493. Although jealously guarded by the Spaniards, the American Indians slowly managed to get hold of horses, which rapidly became a major part of their culture.
The wind was gusting 25 knots when we came out of the museum and I had a panic attack about the soft mud in the anchorage, so we went back to the marina to check that Alba was still there. God bless her she was, so we went back to the wonderful fish market to get some prawns and then to the supermarket to pick up some more food ready go south tomorrow.
13 October 2012 Washington DC to Canoe Neck Creek
The alarm clock went off at half past six – it was dark and cold. Glenys drew the short straw and got up first dashing into the saloon to turn on the cabin heater. We left at seven o’clock just as dawn was breaking and motored out of the anchorage.
We had no wind all day, so it was a boring and long journey, motoring from buoy to buoy. The highlight of the day was passing “Eye Candy” who were on their way up to Washington. We chatted to Andrew and Clare for ten minutes to give them the low-down on the anchorage and what we did in Washington.
We managed to anchor in Canoe Neck Creek about 30 minutes before sunset – a close run thing. It was low tide as we negotiated the narrow, shallow channel and I was a little perturbed when the depth sounder suddenly started flashing “Last”, meaning that it was no longer operating and the last depth displayed was only 2.3 metres. We just dropped the anchor where we were – if we go aground during the night it’s only mud and the tide will lift us off. The holding in this bay is brilliant.
14 October 2012 Canoe Neck Creek to West Yeocomic River, Virginia
It was a beautiful sunny morning. We lurked around until ten o’clock to let the tide rise a little. We had a lovely sail across the bay with 15-20 knots winds in brilliant sunshine, we even took the trouble to tack into the entrance to the Yeocomic River.
We anchored in a lovely little bay in the West Yeocomic River just before Kinsale marina. The bottom is soft mud and we struggled to get the anchor to hold again, but the forecast is for settled weather tonight.