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We're pulling out on Monday on our cross country trek to the Chesapeake. Our route will take us down to Twin Falls ID, Salt Lake City, Laramie WY, Lincoln NB, Indianapolis IN, and winding up at Lexington Park MD where our Navy son and his family live. We'll spend much of September exploring the bay. If any of you Chesapeake sailors are out on the water in September, give us a radio call. It's always fun meeting other Mac owners. Right now, we're looking forward to the road trip, and getting another look at the good old USA.

Chinook, have a great trip and a safe drive. Keep us informed of your adventures if you can. Rob

Road trip successfully completed. 3028 miles from home in Washington State to our son's place at Patuxent, MD. with no problems or issues. The boat is parked in temporary storage at the Navy marina, with launch planned for Monday or Tuesday. Looking forward to becoming acquainted with Chesapeake Bay. More later.

Have a great time. Take lots of pics.

~Rich

We'll be out in the Chesapeake next weekend (hopefully!) - probably staying fairly close to the Rhode/West River - maybe a bit further south, as this will be our first overnighter. If you're up that way, give us a shout!

Sea Dreamer, Uncle Jim and I are about 40 nm north of Drum Point, at Casa Rio Marina on Cadle Creek (off the Rhode River, south of Annapolis). There are some good anchorages nearby, if you plan to sail up our way - and Casa Rio has a pretty good ramp for our Macs and pretty-reasonable launch and trailer-storage fees, if you choose to trailer up. Galesville and Shadyside, across the West River from us, have some good seafood restaurants and crab houses ....

If you're here that long, the Seven Seas Cruising Association will have their Annapolis Gam on the Rhode River, 25-27 September. I'm hoping it will be a good chance to learn more about the ocean-cruisers' lifestyle ... though I'm still some years away from that. (I want to learn all I can about trailer-sailing, first....)

Enjoy! And I hope I meet up with you ...
- Rick

We've made it as far as the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, and it's been a great cruise so far. We anchored out a couple of nights on the Eastern Shore, in the Little Choptank and Choptank Rivers, then hit Annapolis over the Labor Day weekend. The place was really jammed with boats, but we managed to get a mooring ball just above the drawbridge. Next day we met up with Bossa Nova and Sea Dreamer down on the Rhode River, and had a delightful time sharing stories. We're at the Inner Harbor East Marina tonight and tomorrow night. By the way, for you Chesapeake area locals, this place has a great special going right now. On Tuesday thru Thursday, it's free moorage. You only pay for electricity. Nice facilities and right in the heart of town. Pictures will have to wait till we get home. The Mac is great on these shallow waters, and the anchoring couldn't be simpler. This Chesapeake mud sure holds great. It is a bit of a nuisance when you pull up though.

More later...

How many months are you planning for this trip?

I guess I'll look forward to the slide show at next years BWY Rendezvous. You're going to make me have to go someplace new and interesting so I have some new pictures to bring. Still, I'll never catch up to you after the "Inside Passage/Alaska", "Bahamas", "Baja", and now the "Chesapeake" slide show.

I better get planning that "Barkley Sound" trip.

Our Chesapeake cruise is of fairly short duration, 2 and a half weeks, just completed. I'll post the long version on the website when we get home, but we cruised 215 miles, starting at Patuxent River, and made it up to Baltimore before heading south again. Ports of call included Annapolis and St. Michaels. Got in some great sailing, and met up with some nice folks from this board on their boats. We'll be hanging out for the next week with son Dave and family, with the highlight being Dave's pinning as a Navy Chief. We'll go out for another week after that, headed into the lower Potomac before pulling Chinook out of the water for the season. I should have some nice pictures of the Chesapeake for next year's rendezvous, Duane. I hope you get out to Barkley Sound. That area looks great. I did some planning for a canoe trip there several years ago but never made it. I do have a nice paper chart of the area which you're welcome to use. PM me if you're interested and I can get it to you after we get back to the NW in early October.

We completed our cross country trip to the Chesapeake and back today. Over 7000 road miles overall, with our Mac in the rearview mirror, a great cruise on Chesapeake Bay, some quality grandparenting time, and that memorable afternoon seeing our son get pinned as a Navy Chief. However, it feels good to be parked at home for a change. The boat and truck really need a cleaning, as do I. I'll put together a few posts of highlights, lowlights, and related observations as time permits, and will also work on getting some captioned photos on the website.

DEFINITELY enjoyed meeting up with you on the Bay! Your vessel is a great example of what can be done with a MacGregor, and your travels definitely inspire me to "go forth and do likewise". And you are both cool people to hang out with. I hope I'll get a chance to see you again, on your home waters ... or wherever, whenever.

Best regards,
Rick

Chinook wrote:We completed our cross country trip to the Chesapeake and back today. Over 7000 road miles overall, with our Mac in the rearview mirror, a great cruise on Chesapeake Bay, some quality grandparenting time, and that memorable afternoon seeing our son get pinned as a Navy Chief. However, it feels good to be parked at home for a change. The boat and truck really need a cleaning, as do I. I'll put together a few posts of highlights, lowlights, and related observations as time permits, and will also work on getting some captioned photos on the website.

Ditto from Jim & I! We really enjoyed visiting with you - and we certainly learned alot from you both. Thank you so much for sharing with us. We'll be sure to get in touch the next time we head out to Ft. Lewis to see our daughter.

Clarissa

I'll just chime in here also, had a great time visiting, can't wait to see the pic's, as I recall one of them was of all three boats rafted up. I guess that one's rated a triple

Looking forward to reading the logs of your trips.

Jim

Because of its proximity to where I live, I regard the west coast's largest estuary, Puget Sound, as homewaters, but having recently sailed on the east coast's greatest estuary, Chesapeake Bay, I found it interesting to compare and contrast. To begin with, Chesapeake Bay is a true estuary, or river valley flooded by the sea, but never glaciated. Puget Sound is actually a fjord, scoured by glaciers and now flooded by the Pacific. Chesapeake Bay is easily the largest of the two. At 200 miles in length, it is twice as long as Puget Sound. It's 11,684 miles of shoreline is 10 times longer than that of Puget Sound. It's 4,479 square miles of surface area is 4 times greater than Puget Sound, and the Chesapeake's drainage basin is also 4 times larger than that of Puget Sound. Despite its larger drainage basin, it only receives approximately twice as much freshwater inflow. Those high mountains and Pacific Northwest storms see to that. Differences in water temperature are interesting. Puget Sound's average water temp in winter is 45, but only 55 in summer. Chesapeake Bay gets down to the mid 30's in winter, and can rise to the high 80's in summer.

Puget Sound does outdo the Chesapeake in a few areas, most notably in terms of depth. One source I checked says the overall average depth of Chesapeake Bay, if all its tributaries are included, is 21 feet. Puget Sound's average depth is 450 feet. Chesapeake Bay's maximum depth is 208 feet, while Puget Sound's deepest hole goes down to 1.020 feet. Tidal range and currents are also much greater on Puget Sound. The normal average tidal range at Everett, WA is 11.4 feet, and the maximum range is 19 feet. Maximum tides on Chesapeake Bay only reach around 3 feet at the northern and southern ends of the Bay. The range at Annapolis is 1 foot. Correspondingly, currents throughout Puget Sound are frequently in the 2 to 3 knot range, and can reach 8 knots in places like Deception Pass. The low tidal ranges of the Chesapeake make for slight currents in most areas of the Bay.

As a Northwesterner sailing on Chesapeake Bay, I was struck by a number of things. With those warm summer water temps, I could no longer keep my beer cold by simply stowing it in the bilge. Sailing conditions in September were wonderful, with consistent, steady winds at just the right strength, and minimal current. On Puget Sound it seems that the mindset of many, if not most, sailboat skippers is to rely on the engine as primary, and the sails as secondary power source. Chesapeake Bay is truly the land of sailboats. They dominate the scene, and if there is any amount of wind, the sails are up. I found my mind set easily shifting to sails as primary, and the 50 hp as backup.

Anchoring on the Chesapeake was a much simpler matter. Lower away and I could almost hear that Bruce get grabbed by that Chesapeake Bay mud. It really grabs and holds an anchor. The downside is pulling up. That darned mud sticks to nylon rode, chain, anchor, foredeck, hands. I'm surprised our Chesapeake Bay Mac owners haven't all modded their boats to include pressure washdown hose on the bow.

One thing about the Chesapeake that we didn't like was the difficulty of going ashore when anchored out. State Parks and public beaches abound on Puget Sound, but we found relatively few public parks to anchor near while on the Chesapeake. The minimal tidal range makes for very few beaches in the middle reaches of the Bay. And on many of the creeks and rivers we visited, huge homes have been built and what little beach there once was has been replaced with imported rip rap. However, going ashore at historic cities and towns (we visited Annapolis, Baltimore, and St. Michaels) provided an array of rich and fascinating experiences for us west coasters.