May 3 – Hillsmere Shores, MD

Dinghy Rides & Hikes

Harness Creek – Anchorage

We seem to be in a weather pattern of rainy, foggy, hazy mornings that burn off to nice afternoons. We wake up to horrible mornings, but we end up with a beautiful evenings. The dreary start to our day gave us time this morning to catch up on emails, bookkeeping and other inside activities. By lunch the weather had cleared and we took the dinghy for a ride around this beautiful creek. One side of the creek has pretty homes with large boats and beautiful yards; on the other side is Quiet Waters Park, full of wildlife and plants of all kinds. The park has six miles of paved trails that can be used to walk, jog or bike. There are also primitive trails for hiking throughout the park. This park offers a wide variety of activities; it has formal gardens, a huge fountain pool area that is used in the winter as a skating rink, educational centers, pavilions, a large multilevel playground and boat rentals. We spent the afternoon hiking along the creek where we had a great view of our boat in the anchorage, and exploring a few of the paved paths in the park. We even had a deer jump out in front of us, but I didn’t have my camera ready…so I missed a great photo op! We sat on the deck this evening enjoying the weather and watching other boats come and go…truly one of the nicest anchorages we have been in.

Scenes from our dinghy ride

Green Heron

One of the beautiful homes on Harness Creek

Peaceful anchorage

Views from the trail

Part of the paved path in the park

May 2 – Hillsmere Shores, MD

Back Across the Bay

Harness Creek – Anchorage

We woke up again to drizzly weather…very gray and hazy.  We decided to pull the anchor and move back across the bay to the Annapolis area. There are so many beautiful places to explore on the Chesapeake. It wasn’t a pretty day, but the bay was flat and we had an uneventful trip. We went through the cut at Knapps Narrows, which makes the trip from San Domingo Creek across to Annapolis much shorter. We went by Tilghman Island, which is a fishing village…a lot of waterman boats work out of this area. Stan would really like to have one of these boats…if he could figure out a way to get it home; Port Lavaca would have a very unique boat in the harbor.

We are anchored in Harness Creek, which is off the South River; it’s a beautiful quiet creek by Quiet Waters Park. The weather improved by afternoon so we took our bikes to shore. We rode through the park and then to a cute little place for dinner. We use Tripadvisor a lot to find local favorite restaurants. The number one restaurant in the Annapolis area is Vin909…it was only three miles from the dinghy dock, so that is where we decided to go. It is located in an old Sears and Roebuck house in Eastport. A wonderful place that features locally produced beers and wines and dishes that use local ingredients. The service and the food were wonderful. We had the “OMG” pizza –local speck, asparagus, spring onions, olive mix, provolone, fontina, mozzarella and nepitella oil; not quite as flavorful as the pizza at the Ruddy Duck, but very good. We love finding little places like this. If the weather is nice tomorrow we are going to take the dinghy and explore a little more of the creek and hike a few of the trails in the park.

Tilghman Island

Knapps Narrows Bridge

Waterman Boat

There are Osprey on every marker

Bloody Point Bar Lighthouse  (I wish I had kept track of how many lighthouses we've seen)

 Boat dock at Quiet Waters Park

Vin909 - Great spot!

May 1 – St. Michaels, MD

Sunny and Warm

San Domingo Creek – Anchorage

We woke up to rain...again, but by mid morning the clouds were gone and we actually had a little warm weather. It felt wonderful. We spent the day on the boat paying bills, doing a little research for our travels this summer, baking bread and enjoying the weather.

Scenes from our anchorage