Still Pond...not so still

Sunday, Sept 12^th – we have had such great weather. We lift the dinghy and drop the mooring ball by noon. We have 8nm down the Sassafras River and then 4 nm to Still Pond…our destination for today. The wind is out of the North, which ends up blowing up river…yes, on the nose again but we have .5knt of current helping move us along. We pass by a dead-head (danger – floating log) about 4’ in length and 15” in diameter…enough to give a good ‘thud’ if we hit it; then the field of crab traps before getting into the shipping lanes of the Chesapeake. We turn South, the wind is now behind us. However, it has diminished and we are travelling faster than the wind…effectively, no wind. We can’t wait to be able to sail!

It’s only about a mile or two into Still Pond just off the Chesapeake, we can see five other boats already at anchor. No worries, plenty of room with good protection except from a North wind…the wind is blowing out of the North today; however, not strong enough to make it uncomfortable. We

drop the dinghy and go for a little tour around before going through the narrow passage to the protected shallows. It’s almost low tide, the water is still very murky so you can’t see the bottom. The prop hits the sandy bottom and stops. We paddle out in to deeper waters, start the engine again and tilt it up. We continue on pushing our way against the current coming out of the narrow passage in the shallows. Once in there, we see one large stump sticking a foot out of the water, clarity of the water is worse…we decide to turn around and get out of there.

Back aboard, we lounge in the cockpit, watching about 20 hawks in the sky and then notice a couple deer grazing on the hill side. A crab boat passes close by to anchor and on the back of the boat - Billy-Bob is pissing in a small bucket, puts ‘it’ away, zips up and then dumps the contents overboard and hangs the bucket without rinsing it. We laughed thinking he was going to pickup his banjo and start serenading us.

Away from the lights of city or town and the moon hadn't come up yet, it was a dark evening going to bed…we have yet to experience any pesky little bugs.