There was a beautiful breeze today on the Delaware River. It blew from the north, which in our location means that if you went for a sail, you would be on a beam reach and could choose to sail either with or against the current. A couple of boats from the Red Dragon, a block away, were off their moorings when Thelma and I took a walk in mid afternoon.
Monica and I are planning to visit Robin for the holiday weekend. It will be our first time aboard since just after I delivered her to Cambridge in early August. We've been away so long, we might find that animals have selected her for their lodging.
If the weather permits, we will sail to St. Michaels on Saturday. That is a trip of perhaps 35 miles. From Cambridge, which is on the Choptank River, you can get to St. Michaels in only about 15 miles of sailing. This involves taking one of the Choptank's tributaries -- Broad Creek -- to a smaller creek and then anchoring on the south side of the peninsula upon which St. Michaels was settled. It's called St. Michaels back door.
There is a hazard in this approach. The town dock on San Domingo Creek is occupied by commercial fishing boats -- mostly crabbers. And the creek itself is one of their favorite places to trap the crustaceans.
Once we anchored in the creek, oblivious to the fact that a crabber had strung his "trot line" -- a line baited with chicken necks, I'm told -- right under the place where our boat floated. He knew where his line was, but he didn't set any buoys to mark it so we had no idea it was there until, at sunrise, he banged along the side of our boat with a barrage of profanity that could have awakened the dead.
That's not why we're going to St. Michaels the other way. In fact, we've returned many times to San Domingo, a picturesque little creek.
But some friends are planning to sail down the Miles River to the front door of St. Michaels and so we are hoping to rendezvous with them.
Frankly, there are a lot of better places on the Chesapeake to sail. St. Michaels is good for cute shops, a maritime museum and restaurants. Nearby Wye River is good for remote marshes and snug anchorages.
But the trip to St. Michaels could be a great sail, especially if the wind is from the southwest and is as fresh as it was today on the Delaware.