Annapolis to Solomons Island – 44 nautical miles sailed, 6 miles by dinghy, 8 kilometres walked
It was a calm and flat ride for the entire 44 mile and 6.5 hour run to Solomons Island. Pure glass, no ripples, just wake from passing boats. We dodged a lot of crab pots, which are identified by small floating buoys, but besides that there was little to report.
After finding a great spot in a relatively small anchorage, we hopped in the dinghy and rode over to the public dock, which also had washrooms and a pump out machine, all free. Solomons is a long peninsula with a number of tourist shops, restaurants, and an oyster museum, but there are also two long bays heavily populated with marinas. We took a walk through the tourist area which had a very end-of-season vibe as most shops were closed, but it was a lovely spot otherwise with a lot of mature pine trees, some small and quiet residential areas, a cool restaurant on a long pier, and this large environmental research center under construction. There were also a series of military fighter jets roaring around overhead. You are never far away from signs of the military in this country.
We decided to take the dinghy to the far end of the north bay to get closer to where the grocery store was as our overachieving refrigerator had frozen the lettuce and peppers, leaving them a mushy mess. I will admit, I did notice the 6 knot speed limit sign displayed prominently at the bay inlet, but since it was just the two of us in a little dinghy that didn’t throw much wake, and kept to the middle away from the marinas, I decided to throttle up a bit to get us on plane and were probably doing 8 or 9 knots. As we approached the end of the bay, we saw a boat coming our way and turned in its direction to ask them if there was a dinghy dock we could use. Well, turns out it was the wildlife/marine cops and they did a spot check on us. We did pretty good – only got two warnings. One for exceeding the speed limit and the other for not having a fire extinguisher in the dinghy which, in this country, unbeknownst to me, is required for any vessel equipped with a closing hatch, which ours has. Fortunately they were nice kids (yes, kids…I can say that now that I’m in my 50’s) and didn’t ticket us. That is the first time we’ve ever been pulled over by authorities in 20 years of boating.
We found a place to tie up the dinghy (after going into a private marina and being turned away) – Angler Bar – and noticed that happy hour ran to 6pm so we pledged to make it back by that time for a refreshing $2.50 Coors Light. It was already 3:30 and light was fading fast these days so we put some speed on the march. We stopped first at the West Marine and picked up a fire extinguisher, plus Ana found a two for one deal on Yeti cups, which is unheard of, so she grabbed some nice purple ones and she’s probably going to make me part with a few pairs of my shredded underwear to create room for them. Remember the rule – if something new comes on the boat, something old has to be removed to make space, which thanksfully applies to just inert objects, not people.
It was a long damn walk to the grocery store, but we made it back by 5:45 and sat down in Angler Bar just in time for happy hour, which we found out is half price appetizers and one dollar off draft beer so I upped my order to a Dogfish Head Ale, Ana had a coke (which cost the same) and we shared a tray of bacon cheese French fries which were an artery-clogging wonder.
But our luck didn’t stop there – it was also Thursday Trivia Night. The host announced the names of the eight teams and the best name by far was the “Annakin Killing Yuenglings” – the rest were all lame. We made a late entry as “Team Skinnama-rinky-dinky-poo” to get in on the action ourselves. Ana absolutely destroyed the Science questions, then the Music questions, then all the Sports questions, then the Ancient Medieval History set, then totally crushed the questions on Plate Tectonics and the final volley on Petroleum Reservoir Engineering. Between question rounds they played musical interludes. I wasn’t doing so hot on the questions so right before the final round, the host put on one of my favourite songs and I quickly changed into my M.C. Hammer Clown Pants (which I carry in my backpack, at all times, for moments such as these) and I broke into a flashy, interpretive, berserker dance for the crowd, knowing there was no way they’d be able to Touch ‘Dis. Well, they loved it, and were cheering for another volley of bitchin moves, but then they found out Ana had beat them all in the trivia and that’s when they came after us with pitchforks and firesticks. We threw a tenner down on the table and hightailed it out of Anglers, ran across the picnic tables, then leaped into the dinghy and ripped out of there at just under 6 knots before they even had a chance to say, “What the fuh??”
Well, we thought that was all the fun we were going to have for the day, but around midnight Ana noticed that the neighbouring boat who had anchored near us late in the day was swinging dangerously close to our boat. So we stuck our heads out of the hatch in the v-berth in a coordinated fashion and saw their boat actually hit ours. I put on my regular pants, got on deck with my spotlight and shone it into their boat. I couldn’t let out any more anchor chain as that would put us too close to shore and allow even more swinging into the other boats. Our neighbour, let’s call him The Heff, eventually came out in this heavenly white bathrobe, illuminated by my spotlight, which was also blinding him and he nearly fell off his boat.
We had a tense exchange and decided he would take in 10 feet of anchor chain and I would let out 10. So we did that. Then we laid in bed, wide awake, worried he’d hit us again. His anchor must have been dragging because the next time we looked the boat was touching ours again and I went out to the bow and banged on his solar panels.
“Dude,” I said. “Why don’t you just move your boat?”
“Ok, let me see,” said The Heff.
We went back to bed and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally their motor started. Anchor chain was retrieved. We stuck our heads out of the hatch to watch them leave. But they didn’t leave. Instead, he used his engine and incredibly loud bow thrusters to weave himself further back, parallel to us and another sailboat. I went back outside.
“That’s better, hey?” The Heff shouted over to me.
“Not really,” I said as I tied fenders on the side of the boat to reduce damage from the next collision. “I don’t understand why you’re trying to squeeze this big boat into this small area. Why don’t you move it over there in the channel where there’s lot of room?”
No comments:
Post a Comment