We still had a few things to do in Annapolis after our overnight haulout, so we motored over to the anchorage in front of the Naval Academy seawall and dropped our anchor for the first time. The CQR anchor bit immediately, and when we revved the motor in reverse to test it, we could tell by taking ranges on the nearby buildings that it had set well.
We
ran our errands, then returned to our floating home. It had been a
hot day, but the anchorage was pleasantly breezy, particularly in the
"wind tunnel" formed by our sun shades. It was Wednesday night, so we
watched the sailboat races, this time from a new vantage point.
Strong winds that night tested our anchor set, but we stayed put. Feeling the wind pushing against our sun awnings was kind of scary, though, and we decided that in the future we'd take them down if anything less than a windless night was forecast.
Our first destination was the Wye River on the Eastern Shore. The
sail across the bay and to the south was more or less into the wind,
which was fine with us; it was still terribly hot and humid, so the
increased apparent wind was welcome and pleasant. We practiced taking
sights with our hand-bearing compass, and plotting our position on
the chart. When we turned into Eastern Bay, south of Bloody Point
Light, we saw several Navy 44's out on training cruises. One was
sailing downwind "wing on wing" -- mainsail on one side of the boat
and jib on the other -- and since we were on the same point of sail,
we got inspired and did the same. 
We
glided along at a good pace until it was time to turn upwind again,
up the Miles River to our turn-off for the Wye. Most of the boats
iaround us were heading to St. Michaels, but we passed an
interesting craft in the Wye River entrance channel.
We were listening to NPR as we sailed in, and the news was about the new Israeli prime minister and the implementation of the Wye River accords, so it was a neat synchronicity. We could see how the area would be conducive to peace talks, as it was a peaceful place. 2800-acre Wye Island is mostly owned by Maryland's Department of Natural Resources and managed for wildlife conservation and agriculture. A few houses lined the opposite shores, but it was really a quiet and undeveloped place. We anchored near the mouth of Dividing Creek; this time, it took three tries to set the anchor.
In the morning, we loaded our folding bikes into the dinghy and went up Granary Creek, which the cruising guide had indicated was a good place to land. We grabbed a photocopied map of the nature reserve from a display by some picnic tables, assembled our bikes, and headed off down the dirt road toward Ferry Point. It was a hot ride, but pleasant, and at the end of the road there was a trail, cool and shady and lined with berries, which we followed to a small beach. Two men in a skiff, out catching crabs, saw us on the beach and came up and chatted with us a little. They had a trotline out, baited with chicken necks, and they pulled it over a roller on the side of their boat and netted the crabs as they dropped off the line. They'd been out three hours and gotten about a bushel, destined for dinner.
After we'd explored the island with our bikes and explored the creeks with our dinghy, we weighed anchor and retraced our path back into the Miles River. We then turned upriver and into the wind to St. Michaels. Most sailboats we saw chose to motor the dogleg between marks, but we tacked our way in, making for a few white-knuckle moments when we were swept a little too close to one of the marks. We anchored out in the river with a number of other boats. It was rather open, but protected from the south, from where the wind was blowing. We made a dinghy run in to get ice; it's so nice to have a good planing dinghy with a big outboard!
The next day brought a forecast of wind shifts to the east and northeast. (After NPR, NOAA weather radio is our next favorite station!) After checking out the possibilities by dinghy, we motored the short haul to Long Haul Creek and dropped the hook in front of the yacht club there.
We decided to spend the day working on the little chores we'd put off in favor of the big, important tasks: adding a box for our sunglasses to the cockpit table, mounting toilet paper holders in the heads, things like that. In actuality, we ended up sleeping and reading and watching boats go by, and otherwise goofing off most of the day. This time, we took our sun shades down before settling in for the night; this turned out to be a good move, as the wind howled all night. It sounded pretty fearsome, but a middle-of-night instrument check showed that it was only a 20-knot blow. I don't think I want to know what a gale sounds like. The anchor held just fine.
The next day we put the bikes in the dinghy again and went back to St. Michaels. We rode country roads out to an abandoned ferry dock at Claiborne, then back to town where we replenished the calories we'd burned with all-you-can-eat brunch at the Town Dock Restaurant. After that, we were too full to do much of anything the rest of the day, so we didn't end up leaving Long Haul Creek until the next morning.
We motored out of our anchorage anticipating an hour or so of motoring in order to recharge the batteries, but the engine had a few mysterious "fainting spells" -- dropping to a lower RPM for 30 seconds or so, then recovering -- so we put up the sails fairly quickly. Nothing wrong with sailing, of course! We checked the fuel filters and swapped tanks, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. As of the end of this shakedown cruise, this problem hasn't recurred, so our best guess is that something wrapped around the prop while we were anchored, which shook off by the end of the day.
We made Crab Alley Creek on a single tack, although we did have to maneuver a bit to pass the markers on the correct side. We went a little wide in one part of the channel, and hit bottom; since we were almost to our destination, we just dropped the sails, fired up the engine, and powered off in reverse. As we rounded Johnson Island, we saw forty or fifty birds -- gulls, ospreys, mallards, and others we couldn't identify -- sitting on the abandoned pilings of the old breakwater and dock on the end of the island.
We anchored in what seemed like an empty stretch of creek between the island and some small coves with large expensive-looking houses, just a bit past the last set of entrance markers. In the morning, though, we heard motors and voices, and when we poked our heads out, we saw that we were surrounded by crab pot floats and crabbing boats. For many people on the Eastern Shore, it's a living; for others, it's recreation and a way to get some goodies on the table. We have a crab trap, which came with the boat; sooner or later we're going to have to figure out how to use it!
The next morning we explored the upper reaches of Crab Alley Creek by dinghy. The east side had small marinas and modest homes, the west side had farms and fancier houses. We landed at a dock on Johnson Island, alongside a floating house (later, we saw a woman dinghy up to the dock with an armload of groceries, and go inside the house). We were amazed to see a car on the island, since it's less than half a mile long and barely 1/10 mile wide A decrepit trimaran was beached on the other side.
We wanted to install an engine-temperature gauge before we fired up the motor to leave, thinking that if the engine acted up again, we'd have some more data to figure out the problem. We'd bought the gauge earlier and put it in the "box of stuff to do sometime", so we fished it out and hooked it up. By the time we'd finished, it was too late to go anywhere, so we opened a few beers, grilled the swordfish we'd bought in St. Michaels, and watched yet another beautiful Chesapeake sunset.
The next morning, we pulled up the anchor and motored out of Crab Alley Creek. The anchor and chain had gotten progressively muddier during our cruise, so as I carefully and slowly steered us out the channel into Eastern Bay, Britt washed them down with buckets of water and a big scrub brush. The engine behaved itself perfectly, and our new gauge read an apropriate 170°, so we charged the batteries for an hour and a half, motoring all the way to the buoy marking the confluence of Eastern Bay and the main Chesapeake. (It's nicer to sail, but our batteries needed the juice.)
We
sailed up the bay, north into a wind from the northeast, making 5-7
knots in 8-12 knots of wind. We passed the picturesque Thomas Point
Light, tacked to make the next mark at Tolly Point Shoal, then had a
straight shot on a beam reach into the Severn toward our "old
neighborhood". We emptied our holding tank and filled our water tanks
at Annapolis City Marina just outside the Eastport Bridge, then went
through the bridge and anchored just past our old home at
Petrini's.