Twenty years of the St. Michaels passage
The club's overnight race across the Bay, from the first six boats to this year's thirty.
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Most day boat renters head straight for Thomas Point, and it is worth the trip. But the best hour of a rental is often the one you spend at anchor, engine off, with lunch on the bench and the water quiet around you.
These are the four anchorages our dock hands recommend most, all within an hour of Pier 6 on a center console, and the wind that suits each one.
Twenty minutes south, through a narrow entrance off the Bay, Lake Ogleton opens into a round, wooded pool with almost no traffic. It is protected from every direction, which makes it our first suggestion on a breezy afternoon.
Keep to the middle of the entrance channel and go slowly. Inside, there is good holding in mud at eight to ten feet.
Lunch at anchor, engine off, with the wooded shore of Lake Ogleton all around.
Across the mouth of the Severn, Whitehall Bay is wide, shallow at the edges and sheltered from the north. On a hot day with a southerly breeze it is the best swimming spot within easy reach, and there is room for a dozen boats without anyone feeling crowded.
“The best part of a day boat is not the speed. It is the hour you spend going nowhere at all.”
Tell the dock office where you are heading before you leave. They know which anchorages are busy that day, and they will know where to find you.
Up the Severn under the bridges, Weems Creek is lined with houses and old trees, and it is the calmest water within reach on a windy day. It is a no-wake creek, so the last stretch is slow, but nobody minds once the anchor is down.
On the South River, Harness Creek runs alongside Quiet Waters Park. It takes the full hour from Pier 6, and it is the one members choose for a long lunch in a summer northerly. Go early on a weekend, because the best spots fill by noon.
Every boat carries an anchor, a chart and a laminated card with these four marked. Ask at the briefing and we will point you to the right one for the day.
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