To Chestertown for the Sultana Downrigging Festival

 

This weekend, we had an incredible late-October (which felt like mid-summer) weekend to head to the Sultana Downrigging Festival.  This involved a river trip up the Chester River to Chestertown, MD.  We can drive from Rock Hall to Chestertown in about 20 minutes, but by boat it involves a trip south around the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge, which takes about 5 hours.

This weekend was supposed to be so beautiful that it warranted a day off and we headed down Friday morning.  Any boat trip starts out with Boatus Cleanus doing her thing and after a while, Seas The Day sparkled! I passed the cleaning time by filling the water and making some of Dad's chicken salad recipe for our lunch once we were underway.

Vicky "taking the helm" while I went below.

As we went north, we passed some wonderful fall colors and saw the major landmarks along the Chester River.

Soon we caught up with the Friday afternoon sailing of the tall ships.  These are always marvelous sights from the water.  They sort of glide through the water in a stately way... majestic symbols of a bygone era.

Photos will tell most of the story.

After passing the tall ships, we continued up to Chestertown and found a spot to anchor just south of the Chestertown Marina, and proceeded to watch some of the marina traffic and cook up some steaks.  We enjoyed our dinner while watching the sun set and the moon rise on opposite sides of the river.

This was by far the busiest anchorage area we have ever stayed in.  The tide and current would swing twice during the night (moving Seas The Day 180 degrees around her anchor).    Our spot was just a bit south of where the tall ships were staying so this time we could clearly see the "illumination" of the ships' rigging which we guessed provided a backdrop for the festival.

Fireworks started at 8:00 PM and it turned out we had anchored right adjacent to the park where they were set off, giving us a front-row seat to the fireworks display.

I am amazed at my iPhone 15 Pro Max's ability to capture fireworks.  These are all hand-held while sitting on a boat (which was bobbing gently on the water).

After the fireworks were finished and the traditional boat horns died down, we settled in for the night.  

A veritable constellation of anchor lights

On Saturday morning we woke up with the sun and re-anchored Seas The Day a bit farther south.  We were worried that the coming tide change might have our anchor under our neighbor's boat and I also knew that photos would be better a bit after the tall ships departed.

We let the tall ships parade past us, then we hauled anchor and motored by them again.

After picking our way through the field of tall ships, we proceeded south on the Chester River.

Although it was a little cool on the water, by the time we arrived back at Rock Hall around 4:00 PM it was 80 degrees!  (This is the END of October!)  We spent Saturday evening going out to Cafe Sado with some friends from B-Dock and then hosting an impromptu party on Seas The Day to use up some of the wine and whisky on board.

Later we found Jupiter shining just below the full moon and took the chance to view Jupiter's moons using Captain Joe's binoculars.

After a good night's sleep, we spent Sunday cleaning out Seas The Day for the season removing a bit more than typical since she is up for sale.  She's ready to spend the winter in the water where it will be easy to show her to prospective buyers.