I had not heard of Zerve when one of its blogging editors contacted me about doing a guest post to celebrate National Fishing and Boating Week (June 1-9)... Quite frankly, I did not know it was national anything week--every week is a special sailing week here.
My interest was piqued by the website's taglines such as "What To Do... When ordinary isn't good enough.... You want to put your guidebook away... You want to spice things up..." How could I not like a website that helps people find creative outdoorsy things to do? They even have a DC area sailing page. So I said "yes" and wrote this blog post on the subject of the awesomeness of sailing on the Chesapeake:
The Chesapeake Bay is quite simply a remarkable haven for sailors.
Reason number one: it’s a gentle place to run into the mud. There are many old jokes about it, such as, “There are three types of Chesapeake sailors, those who have run into the mud, ones who are about to run into the mud, and those who lie.” Consider the other option: running into hard rock. Ouch. We only have a little mud to worry about, so that gives us a bigger margin for error than other places.
Two: there are endless creeks to explore. Go look at a map of the Chesapeake Bay and all of those twiggy looking tributaries, streams, creeks, rivers. You could sail up a new creek every weekend, discover a new anchorage every weekend, for years, and never find enough time to explore them all.
Three: sailors, sailors everywhere. You can’t swing a dead cat in Annapolis without hitting a sailor—and if you’re lucky enough, you might hit a sailor who knows that the expression about cat swinging originates in tall ship terminology. Come here and you will find racing sailors, cruising sailors, Sunfish and Hobiecat sailors, Navy sailors, ratty old boat sailors, fancy boat sailors, and sailors who sail on Other People’s Boats (we locals call them OPBs). And that’s just Annapolis.
Want to learn more about how to get into sailing on the Chesapeake and beyond? Check out Start Sailing Now
Learn the ropes of sailing and enjoy the Bay
