Short travel day so we could anchor someplace where Tari (via a dinghy ride) could finish her laundry (plus some of mine). We are at the top of the Chesapeake Bay, where several rivers come together to get it started. Tomorrow we will be in the Chesapeake Bay proper.

The Bohemia River starts out with a shallow, wide bay. The depth at low tide is around 7 feet. We entered at low tide and I proceeded very slowly due to my demonstrated propensity to run aground. Previously, I recalibrated my depth display so it would read lower by one foot. On this chart my display depth now matched what was shown on the chart. But sometimes I still only had 6 inches of water under my keel. I ran the chart tracker coming in so tomorrow I can go out following my exact track in. If it worked coming in, it should work going out, plus we will leave at 8 when the tide is still a foot higher above low tide. So I should also be able to leave at a more reasonable speed, but still on the slow side.

There is still plant material floating in the water, so I cleaned my engine intake strainer. I worked on some other odd jobs and dried out the bilge again. The fact that it had several gallons of water in it from an unknown source concerns me. Is the hull-keel joint leaking? We will see. If there is a leak, it seems very slow right now, so that is good news.

Right now it is calm and dead quiet. Perfectly peaceful, unlike last night when I was tied up under a busy highway bridge. The boat is motionless and outside you hear nothing but the sound of crickets.