Finally got to use the boat

We got back to the boat late Tuesday night. Unfortunately Max could not join us as high school tennis practice started on Monday. Monday was also the day we dropped Annabelle off at the airport heading to Rome to visit one of our past exchange students for a little over a week. That gave us 6 nights to explore the Chesapeake a bit. We went without a plan and hoped to figure something out after we got there thinking we would run in to some other boaters that might point us in a good direction. Also I was not sure if we would have a working dinghy which might eliminate or at least really limit anchoring options.

I'm happy to report that after only 3 working days the boat yard had figured out a way to fix the steering in my dinghy and even had it back hanging in the davits when we got back. I've never had a yard actually fix something that quickly without standing over them and even better it worked correctly the first time. Turns out the steering tube needed a better cleaning and more greese. I have to admit I'm pretty excited to have a working dinghy again. Hopefully it still works when we come back to the boat in September.

The weather on Wednesday was not great which let us do some provisioning, we tested the dinghy out, and talked to a number of characters around the boat yard looking for some good places to visit. We decided to stay close and would head up to the town of St Michaels for our first stop (about 38 miles by water). We left Thursday getting in around 5:30. There are four anchorages close to the town. After exporting the first two it appeared we might be a bit too large to drop a reasonable amount of chain and still have the ability to swing as the tides shifted so we headed out a bit and picked another one. I should note that we have not tried anchoring with this boat before and are new to using a bridle with all chain and a new style of anchor. Before leaving we checked the windless (the motor that drops and pulls up the anchor for those not in the know) and everything looked good. Unfortunately when we went to drop  the anchor we found that we had pulled the anchor in a bit too far and it was now wedged in the anchor locker pretty good. I found some shoes and attempted jumping up and down on it a bit with no luck. Next step was to break out the hammer to beat on it a bit. After about 10 minutes I finally persuaded it to come free and we successfully dropped the anchor let out a bunch of chain, attached the bridle, and backed down on it. At this point it was time for a cold beer. Unfortunately after taking a better look at where the boat was settling in we didn't like our spot as we were fairly close to a buoy. So back to the bow I went with Amy at the helm I detached the bridle, pulled the anchor up and moved the boat about 200 feet over to what we thought might be a better spot. After going though the whole process again we once again sat down and when looking at the chart plotter realized it might not be as good as we hoped as we might be sitting on the bottom should the boat swing around when the tide goes out. So once again we muddled around getting the anchor up and redeploying it about 500 feet from the most recent location. This time after letting the boat settle in we still liked the spot. By this point we were hungry we made dinner and enjoyed the sun set. At which point we realized we were now dragging anchor. Why does everything bad always seem to happen in the dark? Luckily we were pretty far from the shore so were able to pull in the bridle then let out an additional 50ft of additional chain redeployed the bridle and backed down on it again. It seemed we were once again stuck pretty well. We were both a bit nervous if the anchor would hold so neither of us slept very well getting up to check on the anchor about every hour. Fortunately we didn't have much wind and didn't move that night.

The next day we headed into town. We found the public dinghy dock and set off to explore. We checked out the museum, the brewery, the candy store, got some fresh crab, and of course checked out one of the ice cream shops. St Michaels turned out to be the typical cute tourist town and also one of the location they used when filming the movie Wedding Crashers. One of the local hotels had a fleet of boats that would take their guests out for sunset sails every night. 

We ended up anchored out there for three nights. We took the dinghy around and introduced ourselves to a few of the other folks in the anchorage on the other side of the channel. For some reason nine other boats came in and anchored there vs the one we selected (maybe the holding is better over there?) The anchor seemed to hold the boat well. When tide shifts happened we could see where the anchor drug a few feet before repositioning itself. For some reason on the last night we found ourselves dragging again. So we pulled everything up once again. After a couple try's we got the anchor to stick once again not getting much sleep worrying if we might be floating away again.

The next morning we decided to head over to check out the town of Oxford. We got a dock for the night. It should have been an easy dock, unfortunately the wind was blowing us away from the dock. Luckily one of the fellow boaters helped us with a line and I eventually got it backed in. Seems we still have a ways to go as far as coming up with a repeatable docking process we can accomplish with just the two of us.

It seemed the town consisted of two restaurants, a bowling ally, and three ice cream shops. We found some dinner and of course had to sample the local ice cream. On our way back to the boat it started to rain and we found cover to wait out the storm only to realize that we had left all of the hatches open on the boat :(. So it was a quick run back to the boat to close up with the hope of not having a mattress that was completely soaked though. Turns out we had got lucky and actually had a waterproof matris pad on the bed so with a little clean up we had a good/dry nights sleep.

Unfortunately the next morning we did not fair to well getting off the dock. We had asked another fellow boater to hold a bow line for us which would have allowed me to pivot the back end of the boat out using one engine. He apparently didn't understand the ask and tossed us the line before the boat was ready. It was windy, we were now being blown into the dock and I had a large concrete dock about three feet from our stern. Somehow I managed to get the boat out without any damage but it was not as graceful as I planned. Once we were a few feet away from the dock I realized we didn't have any steering. Luckily I could steer the boat enough using just the engines  until I figured out that Amy had engaged the auto pilot (which is hydraulic and bypasses the steering wheel when engaged) when plotting our course back to our home dock. During this process we also picked up what I suspect was a large bundle of sea grass in one of our props. This also made steering by the engines a bit more challenging as I had one engine running about twice as fast as the other just to get the same speed from both. This entire experience was a good reminder that its not just one mistake that generally gets folks in trouble its a series of unfortunate events or bad decisions that really gets you. Luckily in our case nothing major happened and we didn't panic but I could have easily gotten into some good trouble and damaged the boat or worse yet other folks boats around us if one more dumb thing had happened.

Coming back into our home dock was again another humble reminder that we need more practice docking. Again the wind would be blowing us away from the dock. The goal should have been to get a bow line on then put the port engine in reverse to back the boat alongside of the dock. Unfortunately I can't see much on the starboard side of the boat due to the location of the helm and was a bit far from the dock not allowing Amy to get a line around the pole. Instead of backing out and trying again she tossed a line to someone on the boat next to us. Unfortunately the water was too high and he could not get off his boat to really help us and with the wind working against us the boat was too heavy to pull over. Eventually we got the boat in with help from the dock but it was not with any grace or elegance... once again :) 

During the rain storm the previous night we had identified a leaking hatch. We drove into town found a replacement o-ring got some dinner at a fantastic local Italian place the cashier at the hardware store recommended then headed back to the boat for the night. The next day we packed up and headed back home for the next set of adventures.

Overall I think we both left this adventure feeling humbled. Nothing had gone really wrong. We sort of enjoyed our time onboard for the week but it was not a comfortable relaxed feeling. We were reminded this is a new boat for us and we need to come up with new processes for everything we do on board from pulling the sails out, to cooking, as well as anchoring and docking. The odd thing with this boat is that it's the easiest to maneuver boat we have ever had but I feel like I'm really struggling with docking for some reason. I don't recall learning to dock the tug being this difficult and its the least maneuverable boat we have had. This boat is big or at least really wide, visibility is somewhat limited, and both factors help make communication hard. We have headsets we use when docking on the tug. Once we bring those to this boat I think it will help a lot allowing who ever is at the bow to call out distances and where the boat needs to go. The other big thing we have been used to is having the 3rd person on board. The spry teenager that is willing to jump off the boat at hights we would not while running around to get things tied up quickly. I'm not sure how we are going to make up for that loss yet?