Halfway down the Potomac

Chapel Point Church

October 18th, 2011 - There's nothing like spending a delightfully quiet night on the hook to energize and refresh ones batteries.  Port Tobacco river is a great anchorage despite being fairly wide open. The night was quiet, dark and stars were plentiful. We woke up early and watched the sunrise above the tree line. It was a quiet and unusually hot day (80 *). We had passed Clements Island, the first English settlement in MD and captured a great shot. This will be a day excursion via dinghy possibly on next years trip.
 One of our concerns was the weather forecast for the next few days. Our plan was to anchor in St. Mary's river by the college but that meant still having to cross the mouth of the Potomac at the Chesapeake after the two fronts had passed. So, we decided to make it a longer travel day 70 miles in 9 hours and get beyond the Potomac. The hardest part of the trip was entering Mill Creek heading directly into the setting sun. It was difficult to spot the fish stakes which made things a little challenging. For those of you that don't know fish stakes are rods placed a couple of feet apart across approximately 30 feet wide that have a net across to gather the fish. The problem is, the stakes only stand about 2-3 feet above the waterline and they aren't easy to spot with rolling seas. Oh yes, forgot to mention the winds had picked up out of the east and we were starting to get beam seas as we were heading towards the channel of the creek entrance which made things even more interesting. Everything calmed down once we entered Mill Creek and discovered at least 10 sailboats have already dropped the hook. This must definitely be the right place.

Saint Clements Island

First English Settlement in MD