Life Aboard SERENADA: Loving the Bay!

We left Kirwan Creek on Prospect Bay (the place with all those jellyfish) at noon on Friday, and chose to motor-sail as the winds were very light. Travelling southward we came across more fish weirs, and also witnessed ‘boiling’ of the water’s surface by thousands of small fish, perhaps being pursued by bigger fish beneath them?

the water "boiling" with fish

We passed Poplar Island to our starboard side. This island is being rebuilt using dredge materials from the shipping channels into Baltimore. Westerly winds and waves had eroded Poplar Island down to only 10 acres in the 1990’s; it’s now over 1140 acres in size and provides habitat for nesting and roosting birds. We then travelled through the very quaint Knapps Narrows on Tilghman Island, and headed north to anchor in Dun Cove on Harris Creek off the Choptank River. This was a favoured anchorage, as several other boaters overnighted here also.

Knapps Narrows draw bridge

We left this anchorage Saturday morning, and with the winds up, we had a great sail on a beam reach, averaging 6-7 knots despite pulling the dinghy. We arrived at Slaughter Creek by 1:30 pm to drop anchor. Lunch was enjoyed at the Slaughter Creek Marina’s floating restaurant. We lingered around their docks, and chatted with the captain and guests of a charter fishing boat. From this encounter, we came away with a fish carcass ;-) We had plans… we read that crabbing was good here. The remainder of the afternoon was spent taking the dinghy upstream, through the salt marshes. We brought along the $2 crab net (baited with the fish carcass) and a bucket, and were rewarded! I hope you can play this short video, which shows Gil pulling in one of the six crabs caught…