Shipping Creek (Kent Island western shore) to Lloyd Creek (Wye River)

Carla deserves special mention today for her superb docking performance in front of the St. Michael’s Marina restaurant and resort crowd.  The guests are usually rewarded with some laughs at the expense of those demonstrating poor docking skills (we let them down this time).  

Carla had to bring our boat into the turning basin, make a standing turn to position herself for the approach to the fuel dock and get our 42 feet of boat and dinghy into a 50 or so foot space between a mega-yacht and pontoon boat. 

We talked in detail about what each of us had to do to maneuver our boat into this tight dock.  Carla amazed those watching as she made a perfect landing leaving about 8 feet of clearance between our bow and the mega-yacht and about 3 feet of clearance to the boat astern of us.  All this was due thanks to our prior planning and teamwork (and some luck).  Our departure was also challenging as the wind and current were not favorable.  Carla came up with her departure plan (which I agreed was a good one).  She briefed me and the dock hand on what to do and once again, looked like a very experience captain as she left the dock.  I even got some of the gawking guests to give her a hand for a job well done.  Looks like the docking class we took was really worth it.  We hope we do as well in the future.

Departed Shipping Creek to explore more of the Eastern Bay.  Several watermen were out crabbing and we repeatedly saw them throughout the morning and early afternoon.  They came out of Shipping Creek betweem 4 and 5 in the morning (their wakes rocked our boat).  Then they preceded us into Crab Alley Bay and later they crossed over into Prospect Bay before heading back with their catch for the day. 

We traveled up Prospect Bay to Kent Narrows and turned around to head south to St. Michael’s for fuel and to get rid of our trash.  We went to the St. Michael’s Marina and took on 16.5 gallons of diesel at $2.33 a gallon.  A good tip went to the dock hand for disposing of our bag of trash.  The marina wanted $20 for a pump-out and even charged for water.  We passed on both since most other places don’t charge for these services and we still had a good 4 days before needing either.  I wasn’t surprised as the marina is also an up-scale resort and the mega-yachts were already arriving for the holiday weekend.