May 19 San Domingo Creek Anchorage to Dividing Creek Anchorage

May 19

Forecast today was for sunny and hot with a small craft advisory (winds of 18-33 knots) developing in the afternoon and continuing into Monday.  This morning was looking OK with SW winds under 10 knots and seas near shore 1-2 feet.   So, at 8AM we raised the anchor in San Domingo creek and started our journey back down the Broad River, out the Choptank River and around Tilghman Island.  From there the decision was to either take the longer outside passage with deeper water or shoot the gap beside Poplar Island and the eastern shore with lower water but a bit more protection.  Since the tide was coming up, we opted for the inside passage which wound up being a non-event.  Once past there it was a NE heading into the Eastern Bay with the swells at our stern.  Then a starboard turn into the Miles River for a bit before turning to port and entering Wye East River.  Off the Wye was our destination for at least a night and maybe more – Dividing Creek.  It’s a great anchorage that already had several boats anchored when we arrived and then a few more came in later in the day. 

Barges of dredge spoils waiting to get unloaded on Poplar Island

Small lighthouse marking entrance to Wye East River

At anchor

View up  Dividing Creek

The wind picked up as expected but this is a pretty secure location.  Strong SW winds overnight and tomorrow.  Then it’s supposed to swap direction and turn into a NE blow.   We’ve got good protection from all directions so should be fine no matter the direction.

The Wye River is known for having particularly large crabs so we plan to do some “chickennecking” to see if we can catch any.   We went over to “Cat and Dogs” for docktails (killer sangria) and hors’douvres before heading to our boat for the night. We finally gave our gas grill a try. A couple of nice steaks purchased during our last provisioning run.  A salad and a little more wine to finish the day.  

Martha trying her hand at "chickenneckin" for crabs

Monday we’ll stay at anchor and watch the small craft advisories.   Sunny breezy warm and humid in our little cove will give us time to relax and unwind.  After a hearty on board breakfast the plan is to drop the kayaks and paddle around a bit.  We are actually within the Wye River Nature Reserve so lots of nature around.  Already saw the biggest blue heron, a bald eagle, several ospreys, snakes, turtles, etc.  Very peaceful and exactly what gunkholing and anchoring out is all about.

You can't have yogurt and granola every morning for breakfast.  Chef John whips up some waffles and fresh fruit in the galley to start the day.

Bald Eagle

This was a BIG Blue Heron.  There were at least 4 of them sharing the creek.

Kayaking in for a close up picture

Serene setting.  Not a bad place to get stuck for an extra day

Staying put for another day (Tues.) as winds picked up from the north again and more small craft advisories.  Actually a bit cool  but sunny.   We had packed up the dingy and kayaks expecting to leave this morning so mostly just a day of  relaxing, reading and some maintenance chores. "Avalon" came into the anchorage  mid day.  Met them at Norfolk.  They were headed further up the bay but got tired of being beaten up by waves and headed in.  Sounds like a good decision we opted to stay put  the extra day.   Only disadvantage of that gunkhole was really poor cellular signal.  Made blogging virtually impossible.