After waking up to 37 degree temps in Annapolis, it was definitely time to start heading south. After doing a last load of laundry and provision run, we left the mooring field and motored over to the Annapolis harbor docks to fill up our water tanks. We pulled in right next to the tall ship Lynx. This was such a coincidence since the Lynx spent a winter in our home port, Fort Myers Beach several years ago. Actually, when it was there, Randy took a much younger Corey and friend Maddie on the ship. It was pretty cool to see it again after all those years.

Once the tanks were full, we spent a very chilly, windy and bumpy day on the Chesapeake. We had 20 knot winds coming directly at us on the bow and the swell felt like being in a washing machine. We anchored for the night at James Island in the Little Choptank River. The next day we motored 25 miles to Solomons Island and dropped anchor in Back Creek where we were reunited with new friends aboard SV Ocean Cowboy and SV Nickelby, whom we met in Annapolis. Ocean Cowboy is a 44′ CSY walkover like ours.

Solomons Island, MD is a quaint little island town located where the Patuxent River and the Chesapeake Bay meet. It’s small enough that we were able to walk most of it and we enjoyed the boardwalk on the waterfront and the picturesque views of the town and buildings. We stopped at a small restaurant on the waterfront called The Hideaway for a couple of beers and thought the way they presented the check was quite clever.

Our first evening there, we were invited for a sunset dinghy cruise with Schyler & Laure of Ocean Cowboy and Jim and Kelly of Nickelby. While Schyler navigated the dinghy around the waters of Solomons Island, we chatted and exchanged stories. We spotted what appeared to be another CSY anchored and approached it to speak to the owners. It turns out that Autumn Bourne, owned by Dean & Susan, is an Antigua 44′ (hull #1). Antigua’s were built by the Coats brothers in St. Pertersburg, FL using the molds purchased from Van Ost’s Tampa, Florida operation when he was closing down the CSY operations. While they are different boats, they have many similarities from the CSY. After chatting with Dean about his boat and where he’d been and where he was going, we headed back home to our quiet little anchorage. We had such a great time on that dinghy ride and hope to do it again soon.

We really enjoyed our stop in Solomons Island and plan to visit again next time we are in the Chesapeake.

Annapolis to Little Choptank River (overnight anchorage) = 35 nm
Little Choptank River to Solomons Island = 25.5 nm

TOTAL miles to date: = 1,703 nm