DAY 31 -- ST. MARYS CITY, MD TO SOLMONS, MD

                            DAY 31 -- ST. MARYS CITY, MD TO SOLOMONS, MD 

            We weighed anchor at 9:20 and headed for Solomons. This was a 40-mile run from a place just about ten miles up the Potomac to a town just inside the mouth of the Patuxent. There was light wind out of the west, so we didn't have any kind of chop (as we were running along the western shore of the Bay) but for some reason we had a 1-2' swell coming out of the south. Interesting sights along the way included a scull at sunrise on the St. Marys River (I was up unusually early this morning), the Freedom Star, two container ships, and the Point No Point Light (another great name). 

            The Freedom Star was formerly a NASA ship that was used to recover booster rockets from the Space Shuttle program. After that went away, it was loaned to a maritime training academy located on the Potomac. When we went past, she was sitting dead in the water with someone in a dinghy doing big donuts around her -- probably some sort of training exercise.

            The Point No Point Lighthouse was built in 1905 and is still operational (although automated, of course). I got a photo of it with two upbound container ships in the background. Those ships started out behind us at the mouth of the Potomac and had overtaken us by the time we reached the mouth of the Patuxent. We were cruising along at just under 17 mph all that way, so they were probably moving at just over 20 mph.

 

             We pulled into the fuel dock at the Solomons Yachting Center (which is not nearly as fancy as it sounds) just before noon and then settled into our slip after filling up. We had a quick bite at the marina's bar and grill, then borrowed two of their bikes to ride up to the Calvert Marina Museum. One of their exhibits is the old Drum Point Light, which was built in 1883, deactivated in 1962 (there was a lighthouse keeper up till the very end), and then moved to the museum site in the mid-70s. This is an example of the way that they first built lighthouses out in the Bay, using the screw-pile construction technique. It was recognized after a while that these were subject to ice damage (back when the Chesapeake used to freeze over) so they switched to the caisson construction technique, as per the Point No Point Light today and the Solomons Lump Light yesterday. 

                It started to rain not long after we got back from the museum, so we finished out the afternoon doing a couple loads of laundry and blogging. The rain wouldn't let up, so we decided to have dinner on board. We were on the outside of the tee at the end of their last pier and were exposed to the SE, so of course that's where the wind came from. We got a pretty good bouncing when the rainstorm kicked up and it lasted until the wee hours. But we had three fenders down and were securely tied and the boat managed alright through the night.

P.S. The land in the far distance is the south shore of the Patuxent where the Naval Air Station is located. It's about three miles away. What kept us from getting an unbearable pounding was the big shoal at the harbor entrance (just 1-2' at low tide) that broke most of the force of the waves coming from the Patuxent River. But even so, we had little whitecaps in the harbor. The lesson for the Captain from this episode is to be more careful in picking marinas (there were lots of others in Solomons) when a storm is in the forecast. 

P.P.S. I have updated the blog for day 26 with photos that we took coming down the Elizabeth River into Hampton Roads.