Sailing II:

On the Chesapeake Bay

by Robin Bonner

Something Old, Something New
I always like to end a season doing something new. For me, a novel activity provides a segue into that same season the following year. It gives me something fresh to look forward to.The end of summer 2008 was like that for us. Not that I need something to help me look forward to summer—winter itself does that well enough. Summer’s my favorite season of the year, to boot. Each year, I find it harder and harder to watch the summer end. This year, our end-of-September sailing charter on the Chesapeake Bay was timed perfectly for the last two days of summer. And it already had me already thinking about next year: Hmmm, maybe we’ll reserve a bigger boat, bring the rest of the family . . .

We hadn’t chartered in 10 years. Getting kids through school kind of put a crimp in our disposable income. We’ve been racing our Lightning daysailer Windsong with the Lake Nockamixon Sail Club (see “Sailing as a Couple: It’s Possible. Really!” in the Summer issue of Empty Nest). At $100 per year for membership and $125 per season for a dry slip—covering unlimited sailing—it’s a great deal. But we have wanted to charter a larger boat for some time. This year, with the last college tuition bill finally paid, we bartered our birthday gifts to one another and made the commitment to spend $700 for a weekend of “bigger sailing.”

Living in the Past
As we prepared for the trip, then drove the two and a half hours to Rock Hall, Maryland, I found the memories of long-ago weekends on the Chesapeake rising to the surface of my mind once again. How to stow the bow, stern, and spring lines as we leave the slip. The whirring of the engine as we negotiate the channel. The filling of those great big sails (so much more sail area than on Windsong)—whoosh!—and the lovely quiet out on the bay when the engine is finally cut. Winching in the jib rather than just cleating it. Watching the mainsail traveler, which glides rapidly past the companionway (the ladder to go below deck); it’s easy to get in its way. The steering is different, too—your hands grab the ship’s wheel in front of you, rather than the tiller behind you. I was looking forward to all of it. I was now in a different place in my life, and the experience, though in my memory, would be new again.

Gary’s the original sailor in the family, but I’ve always enjoyed it. About 20 years ago, I got a tip from a friend about an inexpensive charter arrangement available on the Sassafras River, on Maryland’s eastern shore of the northern Chesapeake (a deal in which you sail an old boat, and, in turn, you are not asked too many questions about your boat-handling experience), and we booked our first charter. It was a Columbia 28 (foot). We arrived on Friday, and sailed all day Saturday and half a day Sunday. We anchored for lunch, swam from the stern, then lounged on the desk to bask in the sun. For Saturday dinner, we brought chicken corn chowder cooked at home before we left, then heated on the stove in the ship’s galley. We sat in the cockpit of our boat, which was now at anchor in a little cove for the night, with mugs of chowder in hand and relaxed as we watched the sun set. Life just didn’t get any better than that.

Living in the Present
Well, here it is 2008, and I write to you from the cockpit of Our Solitude, a Lippincott 30 from Haven Charters, of Rock Hall, Maryland. We’re across the bay from Rock Hall now, anchored in a cove in the Magothy River, just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. We have polished off the last bit of corn chowder (which has become a family tradition) and, gifted with fine weather for the weekend, are taking in the most glorious sunset we remember ever seeing, one accompanied by pink- and blue-streaked clouds and a gentle breeze, which rocks the boat ever so slightly. It is all just as amazing as I remember it, and maybe even more so, as so much has happened since then. Our older child was 2 when we first chartered. She’s now 26.

We have our sights set on a bareboat charter (wherein we captain the boat) in the British Virgin Islands (BVIs) for our 30th wedding anniversary, now just two summers away. To prepare for the unfamiliar waters of the Caribbean, we first need to sail boats more than 19 feet in length (the minimum charter in the BVIs is about 35 feet), and the nearby Chesapeake Bay is just the place to do it. By tomorrow evening, we’ll have a notch in our belt toward this goal.

I have to say I feel much more a part of this sail than any of the others that I remember. I’ve done a lot more sailing in the past 10 years than I had in the previous 20. And, before this trip, I found myself feeling a lot more adventurous—really ready to do something new. I guess I was looking forward to the break in the routine, to getting out on the water again, to thinking about something other than my job and housework. I think at the end of this trip, I may even be ready to face fall. We need to get away from the routine more often—it clears the cobwebs and readies us for what is to come.

Links
If we’ve enticed you to explore the Chesapeake Bay under sail, here are some Web sites to help:
BayDreaming.com Guide to the Chesapeake.
Chesapeake Sailing School
Haven Charters
Rock Hall
SpinSheet Chesapeake Bay Sailing