Rock Hall

There's a big shoal just south of Rock Hall
which is why you go around, then up.

To test out the newly updated displays for the engines we took a trip across the bay to the small town of Rock Hall. We were here last year and remembered there was a restaurant that had dockage... and good crab cakes. Not a long travel, just around 3 hours. We left around 9 am.

You can see the opening on the side where
they lower the rope ladder for the pilot.

Weather was perfect with clear skies and just a slight breeze, so the crossing was free of drama. Should be equally good heading back tomorrow. The only excitement was a car carrier that was coming into Baltimore as we were leaving. It was being met by a pilot boat as we passed it. It's not uncommon for large ships to require a pilot when entering harbors. It's also not uncommon that those pilots have to board the moving container ship by way of ladder. I noticed a ladder ready on the side of the ship. If our timing was better we could have seen the guy climbing the ladder -- sounds so very 1700s but it turns out that's still the best way to get a single person onto another boat.

Docked at Waterman's Crab House.

When we first started the boating thing we believed we'd frequently take the boat to some restaurant, dock, eat, and leave. But on the entire loop we did that only twice; once to get some groceries (in Kent Narrows, just south of Rock Hall, as a matter of fact) and the other up in Canada at Henry's Fish House. So it was kind of novel to be doing it today. 

Getting to the restaurant required careful navigating since the waters in that bay were extremely shallow. Staying in the narrow channel was key, and a little tricky. We docked with ease with a number of lunching people watching the big boat come in. (There's a saying in the boat world: Sometimes there is a show, and sometimes you are the show. If you have a fear of performing, boating is not for you!) We docked without issue. After eating a wonderful meal we took a nap on the boat, walked the dog, then headed just around the corner to an anchorage. We'll spend the night here.

In case you were wondering, the new panels work great. So... yay!

This is the channel across the bay, west to east.
If you zoom the picture you'll see a distant red and white light. These are range markers.
The two lights are separated by quite a distance so when you line them up, one on top of the other, you are in the channel.