We had looked at the weather and though it would be best if we leave early in the morning, before more rain and high winds came, so we couldn’t make another bakery order. We got up early and had to take Frank to shore before we left. I loaded into the dinghy and pulled the cord to start the engine and… the cord snapped. Fu$k. I wasn’t fully surprised because I had noticed the cord was fraying about a week or so before. Before we had left for this trip, I had tried replacing the pull cord and failed, so a day before we departed I had to take it to a shop in Cleveland and was lucky to find a guy to fix it quickly. This is slightly annoying because there is a how-to YouTube video of a ten year old fixing one, yet I cannot figure it out! Oh well- I was prepared enough to have a back up cord which I can use to wrap around the fly-wheel and still start the engine. I was able to do this and get Frank to shore and back with no issues.
We finally departed St. Mary’s and headed for Solomon’s Island, which is about thirty eight miles. We left at 7:15am and arrived around 1pm. Our plan was to try to anchor, but we had a backup plan of a mooring ball if one was available. I was concerned about the forecast winds, so I was leaning toward the mooring. We made our way up the harbor and scouted our the anchorages. I kept checking the weather and was uncomfortable with the anchorage, so we returned to the marina for a mooring ball. I called the marina and they told me to take which ever one we wanted. We found one close to shore and secured the ship. Once settled, we took Frank to shore for a walk. At this point we were hungry as we hadn’t had lunch, so we ordered some takeout from The CD Cafe. We took our food and sat on a bench and ate across from the boardwalk. After lunch we continued on down the boardwalk to the end and turned around to come back. We returned to the boat and aside from taking Frank to shore once again, we stayed on the boat. The wind never materialized like it was forecast, and as Lauren has said “it is better to be prepared and not have it happen than be surprised!” Words to live by!
Tomorrow we plan to go to St. Michaels, but looking at the charts, I noticed there is a ‘back’ entrance. There is an anchorage in San Domingo Creek, “this anchorage is known as the back door to St. Michaels. There is a town dock at the north end of the creek; from the landing it is about a 3 block walk into St. Michael’s” per the Waterway Guide. This will save us from having to go all the way around the peninsula into the Eastern Bay, and there is good town access with a dinghy dock available according to the charts. Since we are only going about thirty four miles, we didn’t have to leave too early…