Creek Crawling

(Note: I’ve been organizing my files now that I have closed the shop and finally have the time. So I have added a page at the top of the browser version of this blog called “The PK Fleet” with pictures of all my boats. My first build was launched in 1998, so I have been at this for 25 years!)

November 11, 2023

Maine cruising is great with its spectacular scenery, snug anchorages and picture-perfect villages. But I have to say after two weeks cruising the northern Chesapeake, that creek crawling is almost equally scenic and very relaxing.

It’s time for Tardis to head south and with a Viking cruise to Norway, Scotland and England taking up most of September, it was just too much to get to Carolina in one jump. So Tardis is now safely in a rack storage marina just north of Baltimore. She was trucked down after a slight delay due to one of the near-miss tropical storms that came through Connecticut this fall, and we went right into the water.

After a stop for gas at one of the huge (400 slip) Baltimore area marinas, we cruised across the Bay for two hours and into another world, Worton Creek, a winding, marsh and tree-lined slot near Rock Hall. Anchored up a creek in four feet of water with a sticky mud bottom, there just isn’t much to worry about.

We were the only boat in calm, 70-degree weather. I guess most of the native boaters in the big marinas that seem to be everywhere call it quits after Labor Day, because the warnings about rowdy crowds in some of the more popular anchorages never came true. That’s another difference between Maine and the Chesapeake. In Maine you have to plan gas and reprovisioning stops pretty carefully. But in the Chesapeake, it seems that around the corner from pristine surroundings there’s always a gas dock and little (or big!) town with groceries.

I continued stopping at creeks along the winding, beautiful Chester River to Chestertown Municipal Marina — brand spanking new, with great facilities, a really nice manager (Paul) and plenty of room. Chestertown is a beautiful little town with a sort of maritime museum for the sail-training boats of a private school. Ate at a great restaurant called The Retriever where the locals gave me some tips on next stops.

Then back across the Bay to the Magothy River and a unique anchorage called the Eagle’s Nest that is surrounded by a fancy horse farm and a nature conservancy. Four boats. Then up to yet another Creek, Sue Creek, just around the corner from my winter storage facility to take down the mast and winterize the water system.

No problems with the Tardis, although I did have to do some work while anchored in the creeks to finish a repair that I will cover in the next post. Also, I think there might be a minor, drippy leak up around the bowthruster, because the foward bilgepump is running about a quart of salt water through every eight hours or so.