Day 186: “Have You Even Been Around If You Haven’t Run Aground?”

Corinthian Yacht Club to Tilghman Marina, Tilghman Island, MD (via Slaughter Creek Marina) (docked)

July 20, 2022

We knew we had to leave early to get to Slaughter Creek Marina – we were looking at a good 50+ mile trip, so it was going to be at least 7 hours of movement.

The Chesapeake was dead calm, really flat and glassy. This makes for an easy, but boring time, since we can’t sail but we don’t have to fight waves and winds without our autopilot.

This also meant that lots of little flying things were able to get around. We had a visit from what might have been an alien being. We flicked it away because it probably stings or bites.

We also found that brown pelicans live in the Chesapeake. This was news to us.

After traveling 50 miles and about 7 hours, we got to Slaughter Creek and found that the water was not deep enough for us to proceed into the marina. It’s an odd feeling to bump the bottom and try to get off. John is pretty methodical with this – when the water is getting shallow (we were using both the Garmin and channel indicators) he slows Lailia down to a crawl. We watch our depth finder carefully but there’s that moment when we bump to a stop, no matter how gentle, that just feels awful. John backed up and moved around to try to find a way through, but we just couldn’t do it.

So…we canceled the slip in Slaughter Creek and started looking for another place to stay that wasn’t too far. Rural Maryland in the Chesapeake basin does not have awesome T-Mobile coverage. We eventually found a place to tie up at the Tilgman Island Marina, which was another 10 or so miles (about 2 hours).

We got there after they closed so we had no wifi passwords but we were able to tie up for the night and get some air conditioning. The showers were open which was a plus – it had been a hot day on Lailia and because of our water line issue, we only have really, really hot water at the end of a day of motoring.

After 10 hours on Lailia, we also needed to take a walk. We were on the tip of Tilghman at the end of the day, so there wasn’t a lot to see.

For entertainment, there are ospreys whistling as they flying around their nests and a jellyfish parade right off our starboard. It’s a simple life here.

We are closer to Annapolis than we originally planned, which is good. We’ll have a very easy 20 mile trip tomorrow so we don’t have to rush around. That’s going to feel decadent after days of getting out of our slip by 8:00 AM.