| Start: | Kent Island Narrows |
| End: | Tolchester Beach |
| Estimate Leg: | 18 miles |
| Actual Leg: | 17.9 miles |
| Estimate Cumulative: | 182 miles |
| Actual Cumulative: | 193.2 miles |
After the bumpy ride into Kent Narrows yesterday afternoon, I was hoping for something a bit more placid today in the trip across the Chester River and up around to Tolchester Beach. I had a couple miles of fairly flat water, and then got into the swells coming across the Chester being pushed by a SW wind. These weren’t lined up too well with the somewhat NNW direction that I needed to go, so I spent a lot of time paddling the troughs for the smaller swells, and then catching some of the bigger ones at an angle by pointing more straight North. I don’t know enough about winds, tides, currents, etc. to know why the water was so choppy, but other than some underlying SW swells, there were lots of other intacting waves that kept this really bouncy. Also, when I did jump on a large swell with a couple hard pulls, it seemed to last for only a second or two before it just fell apart underneath me. After a while I found that it wasn’t worth the energy required to accelerate onto a wave, and I just kept slogging away in the direction I needed to get past the town of Rock Hall and around Swan Point.
Once around the point, things smoothed out a bit and I had a very shallow set of wind waves driving along the shore. If I could get my boat positioned right, with the tip of the hull on the wave in front of me and the outrigger in a trough, I was able to keep a steady 5.5 to 5.7 MPH with relatively little effort. This was good, because I was pretty spent after the ride on the Chester.
Pulled into the beach at Tolchester Marina, having cleared permission earlier in the morning. Ruth and I loaded up and headed for Rock Hall, with recommendations for the Harbor Shack as the “local’s hangout” instead of Waterman’s Crab House, which is more of a “destination” restaurant. Good recommendation!
We are staying two nights at The Inn at Mitchell House outside of Tolchester Beach. The right side of the house is the original home built in the 1700’s, with the left side being a large addition completed in 1825. Jim and Tracey Stone are wonderful hosts, and have been running the inn since 1986. Amazing history at this property, and an incredible home with many stories to tell.
Tomorrow: On To Betterton MD!