Back in the Boat

Screw Pile Lighthouse in Baltimore (1856, moved from it's original location)

Wednesday, October 15th: Langford Creek

We flew back to Baltimore last night after an enjoyable and productive five days at home. The kids, cats and house are all good - we were able to check in with a few friends - and we have come back to the boat knowing that all is well and we can continue on without worry.

Before leaving for Toronto, we bought basics we would need for a quick escape from Baltimore (milk and bread) and we entered way points into the GPS for our next destination. This morning, after a quick pump out, we set out to travel back across to the east side of the Bay, into the mouth of the Chester River, and then up Langford Creek to find an anchorage. It was warm - in the mid 70s - and the water was flat with little wind.

Our Guide to Cruising Chesapeake Bay (published by Chesapeake Bay Magazine) lists a number of places to anchor and explore after entering the Chester River. Some are suitable only for shallow draft boats but there are several others appropriate for a keeled boat drawing almost 5 feet as we do. I had read about this Langford Creek anchorage in another blog. The blogger and her husband had had a brief grounding "experience", so we were especially careful to note the guidebook's list of buoy numbers (in this case green buoys to keep to our port side) and then check the buoy locations, the suggested route and depths along it against both our electronic and paper charts. The trick is to find and stay in the deep water - which can mean following sometimes circuitous routes to places you want to go in these creeks and rivers. We had our own soft grounding last week when we were entering Turner Creek - our chart didn't show the depths in that area and the unlikely position of the green buoy leaving a tiny channel immediately adjacent to the shore caused Bob to hesitate a moment too long before moving over. However - we were going slowly before we "hit" and after swinging the boom over the side of the boat, Bob was able to back off the mud bottom. (That was on our eventful day that included the non-start starter and the wet berth.)

We found the anchorage here in Langford Creek without mishap - a great spot - just off the small uninhabited Cacaway island with marshlands and farmlands on the neighbouring shores. One other boat, a trawler, was already anchored here.

As soon as we were anchored, Bob set about trying out the Sirius Radio receiver that he bought in Markham yesterday. We haven't missed our TV but we do enjoy radio on the boat - and we were becoming weary of the interminable talk of the financial crises and American election. Soon Bob was emptying the stern cabin and lifting locker covers in search of the instruction book for our radio - no luck. At first he was only able to tune into Sirius Radio using the short wave radio that Sean gave him, but eventually after much fiddling, Bob managed to find an unused FM radio frequency on the boat radio/CD player so that now, we can hear news from Canada through our radio speakers!

Tonight the full moon was a peachy orange and the sky was filled with noisy Canadian geese - on their way south from Toronto and Oakville, I can only assume. Tomorrow we travel up the Chester River to Chestertown. As a crow flies, Chestertown is 6 miles away, but since we are following the winding river, our journey will be about 20 miles and will take us approximately four hours.