Chesapeake Bay Day 1

We left Chesapeake City early Tuesday morning with light rain, which seemed not to be a problem until we got out into the C&D Canal. From the time we left the dock until we got into the channel the rain had picked up and the visibility was reduced. The problem only got worse as we left the canal and entered Chesapeake Bay where we could only see the next buoy ahead of us. We were very happy that we have an electronic chart plotter which tells us our current position based on GPS data no matter what the visibility is like.

Around lunchtime the rain stopped and the visibility returned to something close to normal. I say "close to normal" because the sky was surreal with bands of purple and pink on the hazy horizon while the water was an oily calm. Everything on the water looked like a mirage (even the video camera had a hard time focusing!)

The final stretch into Annapolis was rather stressful as we were motoring with the sun directly in front of us causing lots of glare off the water. We had a hard time seeing the sea of crab pot buoys in the water all around us, which would have created havoc on our propeller had we ran one down. Luckily, we managed to get through without incident. We arrived in Annapolis Landing Marina just as the sun was setting, both of us very exhausted and happy to be at a dock.

C&D Canal


Our laptop chart plotter view


An old ship appeared out of the fog


A large freighter also appeared out of the fog




The Chesapeake Bay Bridge