The after Rendezvous Cruise started out with three boats on Sunday.  Zara, SABOGA, and Cygnet left Baltimore harbor around 1:30 Sunday afternoon and headed toward the South River, specifically, Broad Creek near the old Girl Scout Camp.  The entertainment was wonderful as a group of young, attractive people skinny-dipped about 200 yards from our anchorage.  They were well within binocular range.  Gary and Patsy went fishing (until well after dark, I might add) with some success.  The weather cooperated, although it was a bit warmish.

 SABOGA left us Monday morning, headed back to McDaniels.  Zara and Cygnet went on to Point Lookout Marina.  Point Lookout Marina is a bit rustic.  However, it has great service and very nice facilities.  The pool was wonderful, as were the laundry and repair facilities.  The marina offered a courtesy truck for trips to the grocery and liquor store, but not to the bait shop.  Patsy described the truck as “old”, but better than the one another member borrowed that had crates as seats.  We had dinner at Spinnakers at the marina Monday night and were a little disappointed.  Selection was limited (to be expected after the weekend), service was poor (a server didn’t show up), and the food was, at best, adequate.  We stayed a second day to catch up on some things and the restaurant closed early, quite unexpectedly.  So, I recommend the Point Lookout Marina, but you may want to bring your own provisions.

 We headed off for Deltaville Wednesday morning.  Here, we found the best marina of the trip.  Dozier’s Regatta Point Marina is what every marina should be, with one exception.  It has great docks, good dockhands, complimentary high-speed wireless Internet connections, courtesy bicycles, a station wagon as a courtesy vehicle, nice pool, great Captain’s lounge, and so on.  They didn’t have water the day we stayed.  They are working hard to correct this issue and it may be resolved now.  The trip to Deltaville from Pt. Lookout was fairly short, so we used the time to restock the boats.  Deltaville now has two grocery stores, as well as a BOAT/US and a West Marine store.  Restaurants in the area offer to pick you up from and take you home to your marina if you are eating out.  We chose to eat at Toby’s, recommended by the marina.  The driver arrived in a Mustang convertible to transport four fairly large people to the restaurant.  We managed to wedge in (my apologies to whomever I accidentally groped in the drive) with Roger’s head sticking well above the top of the windshield.  It was very good that the top was down.  The meal at Toby’s was excellent, featuring escargot and local seafood.  Deltaville also offered us the least expensive fuel of the trip at Norwood’s marina, just past Dozier’s Regatta Point.  With the BOAT/US discount, fuel was about $0.20 a gallon cheaper and Cal, the dockhand, was very helpful.

 Our next destination was Salt Ponds Marine Resort in Hampton Virginia.  We’ve had members who’ve kept their boats there and it was highly recommended.  We were disappointed.  Salt Ponds is located in a beautiful setting of salt marshes, across a narrow barrier island from the oceanfront, nestled among beautiful, expensive homes.  It was the most beautiful setting of any of the marinas on this trip.  The marina itself was understaffed (it appeared that one person, Penny, was store manager, dock master, fueler, swimming pool attendant, etc.) and offered virtually no amenities.  No one was available to help us tie up.  One of the slip holders commented to us that no transient had been there during the week in over a year.  High-speed wireless Internet connections are available for $12 per day, almost twice the price of access in Baltimore – a rip-off.  Salt Ponds did not offer any courtesy vehicle, public transportation, or newspapers for sale.  The restaurant on site (the only one nearby) opened at 5.  Rona and Roger described their meal as adequate.  Patsy and I went to Blue Water Marina for dinner. Our slip was next to the boardwalk that connects the docks together.  Residents can ride down these docks on golf carts.  It was finally cool enough to open the windows when a golf cart whizzed down the boardwalk sounding like the end of time had arrived.  It was unnerving.

 Friday morning, we set out for Crisfield on what may have been the best day on the bay.  It was cool – Patsy had to get a jacket while on the bridge – and very calm.  Hampton to Crisfield is a trek, some 60 miles.  Patsy and I slowed to watch an enormous turtle swim away from us just off Cape Charles.  You could see the Eastern Shore end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel as we left Salt Ponds and started north.  It was interesting to hear the pilot boats meeting the warships to take them into and out of port.  One of the more unusual sites was a pontoon boat, loaded with fishermen, out in the middle of the bay.  I had to check the charts twice to make sure that I was in Crisfield when we got there.  Two, new high-rise condominium buildings were on the riverfront.  I understand that the penthouse in one of the buildings is being sold for $1.6 million.  Grace and Cleon Arnold drove down to spend the evening with us.  The courtesy car that night was a Cadillac, thanks to the Arnolds.  Somers Cove Marina is a state owned marina.  The amenities are few (free pump outs, courtesy bicycles and a great pool shared by the community) but the location is great, within easy walking distance of restaurants, hardware stores, a grocery, and a liquor store.  We had dinner the first night at the Lighthouse.  Again, best meal of the cruise.  Excellent local seafood, a good prime rib, and moderate prices made it a great choice.  We hoped to eat at the Captain’s Galley, a local favorite, but it was replaced by one of the condos. 

 Saturday, the Bayers took a cruise to Tangier Island.  They reported that Tangier is much the same as it ever was, with the addition of a couple new restaurants.  The Arnolds and the Bishops went to Onancock to sightsee and then toured one of the Crisfield condominium buildings.  The Arnolds took brochures and seemed very interested in one of the units, along with a slip.  The Arnolds headed back for home in mid-afternoon.  The Bayers and the Bishops had their final evening together at Watermen’s Café – a lovely dinner place.

 The weather forecast for Sunday was windy, with light rain most of the day.  Conditions were to get worse during the day.  The forecast was correct for once.  The Bayers headed out early for their home base of Solomons.  Patsy and I decided to head on to Oxford, about 65 miles up the bay and over.  It was windy, but not terrible until we got past Hooper Straight and into the main body of the bay.  There, the wind was howling around 20 knots with gusts.  The wind was so strong, it broke our burgee holder on the front rail.  After four hours of being knocked around, we decided to head into Hudson Creek, just off the Little Choptank.  We anchored in a nice side creek and took a nap.  Patsy awakened me by saying, “Dave, the anchor slipped,” as we slid into someone’s home dock.  We ran over a small sailboat, a boat lift (with a fishing boat) and a small floating dock.  Patsy and the people in the house held Cygnet in place while I started the engines and backed us out.  The people at the house kept commenting that they didn’t know how we got up there since there was no water depth at their dock.  I don’t know how we got out of there.  I re-anchored and went back in the dingy to exchange insurance information and to pick up the boat hook I loaned to a lady while she pushed my boat away from hers.  Amazingly, no damage was done and the occupants of the house were surprised that I actually came back.  We went on to Taylor’s Island Marina to spend the night away from the wind.

 If you’ve never been to Taylor’s Island Marina, you’ve missed one of the great places showing how life on the bay must have been years ago.  Friendly people, a lot of watermen, and unparalleled beauty make Taylor’s Island a nice place to visit.  We bought all of their gasoline, almost completely filling our tanks.  That we did not completely fill the tanks became important later on.  We headed onto Oxford and arrived at Peach Blossom Creek late Monday morning.  Patsy began fishing almost immediately, with some success.  Monday was a very lazy day.

 The good fishing continued Tuesday morning.  We needed to stop for provisions at Oxford and called a marina for a place to tie up for an hour or so.  It turns out that you can tie up at the ferry dock (obviously out of the way of the ferry) for up to three hours at no charge.  I took advantage of that while Patsy stayed on the boat looking for a wayward cat.  Patsy and I decided to go to Lankford Creek, just off the Chester River, rather than go further up the bay to a place like Fairlee or Worton Creek.  The weather continued its 10 daylong cooperation and the cruise through Knapps Narrows, up the Eastern Bay, through Kent Narrows was pretty uneventful.  The Tilghman Island Inn was extensively refurbished and improved.  We didn’t have time to stop, but it looked great from the outside.  We arrived at our Lankford Creek anchorage in the late evening. 

 The fishing was wonderful again, so Patsy spent Wednesday morning catching white and yellow perch, along with a stray catfish or two.  After lunch, we headed back.  The wind had come up a bit, but it was not too bad.  The heat and humidity returned and we left Lankford Creek with very limited visibility.  We made one more fateful decision – I decided not to buy fuel.  We had plenty of places; Rock Hall, Tolchester, Fairlee Creek, or Worton Creek were all possible fuel stops.  According to my calculations, assuming that I had 300 gallons of capacity in the fuel tanks, we would make McDaniels with fuel to spare.  The $2.87 price of fuel at Worton Creek had nothing to do with my decision to fill up on the $2.33 fuel at McDaniels. 

 We lost the first engine, the one that was almost but not quite full from Taylor’s Island, about 6 miles from our home slip.  There was another marina nearby, closer than home.  Patsy called to ensure that they would be open and staffed if we arrived near the time we would get there.  We ran out of fuel turning into the marina.  I drifted out of the way, anchored, and called Tow Boat/US.  We were within a mile of home.  The towboat took us to the fuel docks at McDaniel where we spent the night.  The next morning, we filled up with 240 gallons – 120 on each side, somewhat less than the 300 I expected, but at least 20 gallons more than I had ever purchased.  If we had the 300 gallons promised, if we had filled the port tank at Taylor’s Island, if the weather had been a little better, if we had slowed down a bit more, if the picket boats hadn’t kept us from cutting a corner near Aberdeen, if I had bought 10 gallons of overpriced gas, we would have made it without any problem.  My thanks to TowBoat/US Chesapeake City for their professional, prompt, and excellent service. 

 It was a great cruise.  Patsy and I don’t stay in marinas much and I don’t expect that to change, but it was nice to try out some new places and to compare the features of the different marinas.  It was good to go to old, familiar places, too, even though the pace of change seems to be accelerating on the bay.  Someone commented that five years ago, $1.6 million would have bought the town of Crisfield, not just the penthouse condo in one of five different condo developments.  There are fewer watermen than when Patsy and I started our personal cruise down the bay 11 years ago.  People in the coastal communities and on Tangier Island are having massive change in how they live and how they make their living.  On the other hand, the bay looks cleaner than it has in times past.  The brown and white pelicans fly as far north as the Little Choptank, a significant improvement in their range.  We hope that you can join us for the next cruise.