Wye East River

Last week we sailed to one of our favorite spots, the Wye East River. We started out by spending two nights at Leadenham Creek while waiting for favorable winds. A waterman started working his trot line early in the morning the first day we were there and came extremely close to our boat. During one pass he assured us that he saw us (implying that he wouldn’t hit us). During another pass George offered to move, but the waterman said it wasn’t necessary. He was very friendly and seemed to be enjoying himself. While we were at Leadenham Creek we put the dinghy together so that George could test the outboard. He had recently cleaned the outboard’s carburetor and wanted to make sure it would still run! It started right up and ran very well.

Once we had a good southerly wind we sailed out into the Chesapeake and north to the Wye East River. We spent the first night in a tiny cove that we call the “bump out”. We had stayed there once before and liked it. The current this time seemed stronger than we remembered and made anchoring a bit more challenging. The next morning we motored a short distance up the river and anchored in Dividing Creek. We were pleased to find just one other boat there, since it can get quite crowded.

We took the dinghy down to the end of the creek so we could walk the trails on Wye Island. It was tricky walking on a log to get to shore but we both managed without falling into the muck. Wye Island is a nature preserve with an old growth forest. Some of the trees were absolutely huge.

The creek started to fill up with more boats on Friday and we enjoyed watching a group of three boats raft up to each other at the North end of the creek. In the middle of the night the wind suddenly shifted from S to N as a front passed and picked up to over 20 knots. George got up to make sure the anchor wasn’t dragging and I laid awake worrying the the raft-up would drag into us. The next morning we saw that the group (which by then had four boats) had indeed dragged about a 1/2 mile closer but didn’t drag all the way to us. Phew!

We raised the anchor and had a delightful sail home in northerly winds. There were numerous sailboats on the bay and the Choptank which George enjoyed “racing.” One of the boats, Wombat, hailed us as we were passing Trappe Creek. Liz, on Wombat, said her cruising group was meeting at Trappe and asked if we were familiar with the area. George told her we were and gave her a few suggestions on where to anchor. She then said she had taken a few photos as we passed and said she would email them to us. How nice!