St. Indigoes Landing, MD

One last walk through the pretty grounds of Harrington Harbor South was the start of the day for Jonny and Archie on Tuesday, October 5.

 We took off at 9:30 bound for an anchorage in Cornfield Harbor. I think that the boat in the next photo should have had Boston as its hailing port. 

The day was overcast and quite hazy and the Chesapeake was nice and calm as we made our way down the Bay to the Potomac River. We expected it to be rainy the next day so Jonny wanted to make tracks while the sun shone (sort of).

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We saw a couple of remarkable vessels along the way but boat traffic was very light.

We quietly covered “ground” until we arrived at Cornfield Harbor on the Maryland side of the Potomac at 4:15.

I recorded our time and distance as I always do I while Jonny set the anchor (or tried to)!  Three times he tried to set the anchor and it wouldn’t hold. So frustrating!  We moved Zendo to a spot further away, near another boat that was anchored, and tried a few more times without success.  So we decided to head deeper into the harbor by Point Lookout State Park but the anchorage was very small and there was already one boat there with no room for a second one.  After that, we came out of the harbor and went a bit further north and tried to drop the anchor once again. All to no avail!  By that time, dusk was beginning to descend and we headed north to yet another anchorage - one that we had initially contemplated and set aside.  

It took us a good 30 minutes to get to the first of three Smith Creek anchorages called St. Indigoes Landing right off of the creek.  Just as Jonny was ready to drop the hook, we ran aground! Try as he might, he was unable to free Zendo.  The tide still had another one and a half hours before dead low tide so all we could do was wait.  Fortunately there was no boating activity - we were in a very quiet area and also one with no convenient land access. Luckily Archie was not hankering for a walk.

To be on the safe side, Jonny dropped the anchor and I made dinner for us - sausage, peppers, potatoes and salad.  We had a few glasses of wine and waited.  Around 10:30 Zendo seemed to be floating a bit so we all went out to see if we could move to a safe spot.  But she wasn’t budging.  High tide was expected to be at 2:30 a.m. and Jonny was concerned that we were drifting into shallower waters.  To prevent that from happening, he went in the dingy in the starless and moonless night to pull up the anchor and kedge the boat forward away from the shallows.  After that, he stayed up on the flybridge determined to wait until we were free.   Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long and by 11:15 we were floating free. We all got up to help move Zendo safely to deeper waters and promptly retired for the night. 

It was one of the most frustrating anchorage experience we’ve had in our many years of boating!