WTFR WE? : Annapolis bound on Chesapeake Bay

There was something magically surreal as we headed north on Chesapeake Bay ...

Was it the quiet and solitude???

Or the ease of anchoring off the bay's many tributaries...each one fairytale perfect???.

Or was it the picturesque lighthouses????

Or the many ultra quaint seacoast towns???

And of course every fairytale needs a touch of evil... This is a "Duck Blind" where the "wicked" hunters hang out with shotguns in hand, waiting for poor lil' unsuspecting ducks to fly by...

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Ahem, let's talk about the weather shall we? So we encountered a variety of weather conditions...

Here we had light downwind spinnaker-ready winds...

Jeff was so happy! First spinnaker opportunity since Lake Michigan, two years ago!

Then, in direct contrast, we had the unexpected onset of a massive blinding downpour along with gale force winds as we were heading into an anchorage for the evening. We were not able to see more than 25 feet in front of us, let alone the shoreline. And naturally our Raymarine/Navionics chartplotter was way off the mark. It appeared as if Grace was on land! So after quickly taking the below photos (I know my priorities:)), I held up our ipad, which has a great Garmin chart, underneath the dodger in the driving rain so Jeff could get an accurate fix on our position. Captain Jeff had to hold our position at the helm drenched in his yellow rain gear until we could see well enough to anchor. Fortunately the storm abated within half an hour.

The juxtaposition of the multi-layered blues of the sky and almost iridescent green water just before a major storm... takes my breath away.