Autumn Bay Cruise 2009 (continued)

Day 4 - On to Annapolis

The crews of the Chesapeake Bay Table awoke at sunrise and left Solomons Island at 8:00 AM. There was little to no wind to speak of so everyone motored north up the Chesapeake Bay. Orza left Solomons late and arrived at Annapolis early. Fenders were out to form a raft when the rest of the fleet arrived. This is the time Incident No.1 occurred: just after Talisman had rafted with Orza, a large trawler - Sea Bear - came through the anchorage at about 12 knots, plowing up a good sized wake that rocked all of the boats rafted up to Orza and everyone else in the anchorage. Some heated words between myself and the Captain of the trawler revealed that the Captain had revenge on his mind. Apparently, Orza's wake had given the trawler some trouble off of Cove Point and he was in payback mode. His revenge was completely void of any consideration for the other boats at anchor.

Because this incident and the substantial amount of boat traffic in and around the anchorage, conditions were not favorable for a raft. Most of the fleet anchored around Orza and used their dinghies to transport over to the "Mother" ship. Tardis couldn't find a place to drop anchor as the schooner Dove II had just anchored and had warned Tardis off for being too close. Maybe this was a good thing.

A water taxi picked everyone up around 5PM for dinner at the Rockfish Restaurant. It was a fine meal and a great time for everyone. Then it was back to Orza for dessert. A short time after returning - before many of the other crews had arrived, a Captain from a neighboring boat came over to inform Orza that it was about to collide with the schooner Dove II that was, apparently, drifting at anchor. No one initially believed him. But he described how the bowsprit had bent the bow rail on his Amel 53 and implored the crew to have a look. This is about the time June and I were coming over in our dinghy. We couldn't figure out why this schooner had its bow alongside the port bow of Orza.

As we tied up and boarded Orza there was a certain degree of confusion while some sailors on Orza fended off the careening schooner and others tried to figure out a strategy for dealing with the long term problem as there was no one aboard the offending vessel. Bui and I went back to our dinghies to push the boat away. This was about the time we discovered there was no tension on the schooner's anchor line. Bui followed the line and determined the problem: an abnormal amount of scope had been deployed for a shallow, crowded anchorage. It was careening around the calm anchorage with currents determining its direction and speed.

No one wanted the potential liability of boarding another boat so the authorities were contacted. That proved to delay things even further: The Harbor Masters Office was closed for the day (during a boat show weekend??!) and the Coast Guard referred us to the Maryland DNR. Finally we contacted them and somewhere between a half hour and forty five minutes later, a single officer showed up in a large inflatable boat to deal with the situation. He got the help of the Amel Captain who boarded the schooner and pulled in approximately one hundred fifty feet (150") of anchor line before there was enough tension on the line to hold the boat in place.

With that situation dealt with, everyone turned their attention toward a dessert of chocolate chip cookies. Later on, the Captain of the schooner returned and apologized profusely. He related as to how his inexperienced crew was to blame. That point fell on deaf ears as he is the captain of his vessel! Fortunately, he had adequate insurance.

The next morning, we saw some paint and physical damage had been inflicted on Orza so their were subsequent conversations with the Captain of the schooner.