Friday: Little Bay off Antipoison Creek: 37'38.145N/ 076'19.156W
I am heading up for Fleet Bay and Antipoison Creek and a little bay off of the called, appropriately enough "Little Bay." On the way down(South), I anchored there and in the morning I left, or perhaps the night I was there and anchoring, i dropped my anchor weights overboard and they sank like the proverbial stone. I do not anticipate a similar occurrence on this visit and who knows, perhaps I will actually dredge up the old weights.
On the way I ran into, figuratively not literally, my first fishing weir or fish trap. It is made up of netting strung along and around a series of poles set into the bay bottom. It is something not really marked on charts except in a most genera;l way. It is not something that shows up on radar and your auto-pilot will not avoid it. If it is hazy or at morning or evening twilight, it can be impossible to see until you are right upon it. And who says coastal cruising isn't fun and exciting?
As I was motoring north, I kept looking at sailboats all around me who had their sails up and I didn't. I had no win d to speak of and what there was, little indeed, was right on the nosey. I could figure out where they were getting wind and why they were getting it and I was not. It turned out that none of the other boats had anymore wind than i had and were simply running with their sails up in the hope of enticing some wind to come along and fill them. No such luck I am afraid for what wind there was died out completely by late afternoon and we were all motoring, sails up or down, in a mill pond calm. It clouded over abit and that promised the possibility of some wind later but we would be at anchor then and have no real need of it except to keep the gnats away.
I was listening to the the VHF and caught a sailboat, "MY GIRL," who had evidently experienced some king of electronics failure as his GPS and Chart Plotter was out and he wanted to get to Annapolis and he wasn't sure which way to go as all he had was a compass and no charts(paper)! Way back in December at the New Symnar Municipal Marina, after I had docked for the night, I had my charts out and was laying the course into the GPS for the next day and writing it down on paper after checking each waypoint on the chart. The guy running the marina came over and commented on how good it was to see someone who still used paper charts and didn't depend solely on electronics. Evidently we are few and far between in his experience. The guy on "MY GIRL" evidently solved his problem by contacting passing ships, inquiring about there destination, and following those that were head toward the Baltimore - Annapolis area trusting that he would be able to make it safely. I hope he did as it is well over 90 miles and I doubt that he was going to be able to do it in daylight. Even then, how would he know where to go to anchor or dock. It was a sad commentary on the use of one source navigating.
I never did find the old anchor weights!
Saturday: Solomon Islands(Maryland) 39'19.943N/ 076'26.658W
I had plenty of wind today but it was out of the north and I was heading north.(Sigh!) For most of the day it was a long hypnotic droning diesel that did its best to put me to sleep but failed.
I ran into a new fishing technique, at least to me. From what I could see of it, I didn't want to get top close, a boat drags 2' x 3' piece of wood or metal or heavy plastic from the stern of the boat on a line. Attached to the "drag" are several lines with bobs and hooks and shiny things that I don't know what they were, and the boats troll around at a slow speed. It is not a commercial enterprise as I saw all types of powerboats big and small using it. It tends however to bring out the nasty in people if you get too close or cause them to change course as it messes up the lines. Don't know if it works well or not but everybody fishing to today seemed to be using it.
