Heading South

I'm going where the sun keeps shining
Thru the pouring rain
Going where the weather suits my clothes
Banking off of the north east wind
Sailing on a summer breeze
And skipping over the ocean like a stone

We spent the night on board the boat on Wednesday, October 20. We were trying to get the house closed up and it was becoming complicated trying to be in two places. We wanted to be able to get an early start on Thursday.

The view from the dock the morning of departure

Dawn brought a beautiful sunrise … not quite a red sky, more like pink. The weather forecast was for winds 15-20 with a small craft advisory. However, winds were predicted to be out of the west. Gerry decided we should be able to handle this as the wave action would be mitigated by the western shore. He said we’d traverse the Bay close to the shore and should be okay. If not, there were plenty of places to “duck in” and find an anchorage to get out of the weather. Linda agreed that this was acceptable.

Heading out of the neighborhood - just like we did 16 months ago
only this time we have a gold burgee

We finally got everything squared away and headed out at 9:30. Our planned destination was Solomon’s Island, but we agreed we’d let the weather dictate an earlier port if it was nasty on the Bay. Once we cleared the Severn River and were on the Bay it was obvious the wind was blowing quite hard, but the waves were only 2 feet or less and the ride was quite comfortable. The sky looked threatening much of the day, but the rain never came. By the time we got to Solomon’s Island the seas were quite flat. We anchored in Mill Creek around 6:00. It had been a long day, but we were elated to finally be underway. We had a toast to our first day back on the water, had a quick dinner and went to bed.

Approaching Solomon's Island

10/22 - The next morning brought sunshine and it looked beautiful. However, the wind was still strong. A small craft advisory was still in effect with a forecast of winds at 15+ gusting to 25 and seas 2-3 feet. Since the previous day had worked so well, we decided to try it again and head for Deltaville. Once out on the Bay, it was a bit uncomfortable as the wind was basically out of the north and we had following seas – not our most favorite point of sail. We were okay until we hit the Potomac River and then the combination of the wind (25, gusting to 30+), current, and no land mass to windward, really produced HUGE waves. The Captain really got a workout trying to steer up, through and down the waves. A couple of times we hit 12 knots surfing down waves. Linda had to continuously reposition and reattach things on the flybridge with ropes and bungee cords all while holding on for dear life. As we cleared the Potomac and rounded the point, we decided to head for Reedville. Once we were safe and sound at anchor, we again had a toast – this time to surviving our second day. Hopefully we have that silliness out of our system and, since we’re not on any schedule, we won’t venture out again in conditions like that. It took us most of the afternoon to straighten up the mess inside the boat.

Our anchorage in Reedville. We were very happy to be here
after our rough day on the water

There was a full moon coming up over the tree tops

10/23 - Saturday brought lighter winds and our run to Deltaville was delightful, if a bit chilly. We anchored in the same area we had passed through 4 months earlier. Gerry worked on a few boat chores and Linda stowed items she hadn’t found a place for yet and baked bread (using her new bread machine). A very relaxing Saturday afternoon.