Whitehall is on one the North side of the Patuxent River and the Patuxent River Naval Test Center is on the South side. As we rounded Cedar Point off the test center we were contacted by a Navy range control boat. They requested that we stay close to either the West or East shore as, in their words, "The Navy is using this area". Lacking adequate means to repel armed and unamused boarders, we cheerfully complied with their request.

We engaged in our own impromtu naval exercises as we threaded our way into the creek just North of Jackson Creek near Deltaville. We (Linda and Hannah might say "Grinnell") ran aground. And not once, but twice in rapid succession. The sides of the dredged channels are steep. The depth meter went from 4.5 to 3 to 1 to "THUNK" in about 20 feet, which is about how wide the channel is. We treated the groundings as practice for the ICW, where we've been told "you will run aground". Thistle carries a large Danforth anchor for such occasions. Grinnell dinghied it out off the stern (twice) and we winched ourselves out of the sandbank and back into the channel. The photo above is one of a neighboring cruising boat threading the channel.