gunking toward home......

Gunk hole:  A small sheltered cove suitable for anchoring small watercraft.  We love them.  By a happy accident we found a perfect gunk hole just off Dividing Creek. We had initially planned to drop hook in a cove recommended by our trusty Chesapeake Bay cruising guide. As we approached, there were three boats already anchored there, and three more motoring into the same area. One of the skippers hollered that they were all rafting up together, and they had issued 130 feet of anchor rode. It is usually no problem to go find another spot, but a huge black summer thunderstorm was bearing down on us, complete with lightning and increasing winds. It was clear that they weren’t going to invite us to raft up (the boats were from New Jersey and Philadelphia) so we boogied out of there and motored around a little point and up into a different branch of the creek. Then it appeared. A round cove, about 9 feet deep, a house on the shoreline, an egret walking in the marsh, trees on two sides – perfect. As soon as the anchor splashed the gusts hit and the rain started. No problem, we were tucked nicely in the protected cove – all by ourselves.
Since we had no genoa we took a fairly direct route home, cutting a few days off our trip. We made unplanned stops, overnighting in a couple of coves that we had never before visited. It turned out to be the most naturally scenic part of our trip.
The rest of the trip:

A cove in the Choptank River to Annapolis
Annapolis to Baltimore
Baltimore to a cove near Solomon’s island
Solomon’s to our newly discovered gunk hole somewhere in Dividing Creek
Dividing Creek to Sarah’s Creek
Home.

Now I need to order a new genoa sail.