Annapolis, MD to Reedville, VA (Days 9, 10, 11 and 12)

Wednesday, October 7th (Day 9)

Air temp 54, water temp 68, winds S @ 10-20

Another mostly relaxing day on Second Wind.  Winds were out of the south so not a very good day to be heading down Chesapeake Bay.  Instead, we stayed on our protected mooring in Back Creek working a few boat projects and heading out to dinner at a local pub.

I practiced the flute again for about an hour and, somewhere in the middle, I was playing several patriotic songs (seemed appropriate for being close to the Naval Academy and Washington, DC) and had just finished the Star Spangled Banner when a sailboat motored close by to catch the mooring next to us.  The gent on the bow yells over, "Well Done!"  I try not to think about other people listening or I get too nervous.

Our major job of replacing the raw water line to the engine seems to be good except for a small drip on the sea strainer end.  I've tried tightening that fitting with several of the wrenches I have in the well-stocked tool box and haven't found one that will fit in the small area and also clamp down on the fitting.  It's only 1 drop every 30 seconds or so.  I placed a rag under it and will monitor closely.

We showered and put on fresh clothes before heading into Easton for dinner.  We docked at the small park just in front of the Davis Pub and found a nice table on the blocked-off street.  Laura took this picture of the pub.  I'm sitting at the picnic table behind the Lite Beer sign.

After dinner we took a walk around Easton then a little dinghy ride before heading back to the boat.  Here's a picture of Second Wind on her mooring with the sunset in the background.  The catamaran in the behind Second Wind has lots of flags so it's a little distracting.

Back at the boat we hauled up the outboard onto the port aft rail to prepare for our sail down the bay tomorrow.  The winds are supposed to be 15 gusts to 20 in the morning so it might be a little rolly.

We watched the last 2 James Bond movies on the computer and hit the sack.

Thursday, October 8th (Day 10)

Air temp 55, water temp 67, winds NW @ 15

We were off the mooring at 7:45am and it was very calm in the creek with only light winds.  I was a little disappointed because I was hoping for a nice sailing day but maybe the winds were not making it into the protected creek.

As we motored out of the creek the winds picked up and we turned into the wind to pull out the mainsail.  Once on the bay, we turned south, jibbed the main to the port side and rolled out the jib.  With the full main and jib, we need to keep the wind less than about 130 degrees off the bow to keep the main from shadowing the jib.  The wind angle was just enough to keep on course down the middle of the bay.  But, I would rather have turned a little more west to keep the shore closer and the waves a little smaller.  Overall, it was a nice sail for a couple hours as the boat ran between 6.5 and 7 knots.  Here's a video Laura took during the sail.

Later in the morning, the winds increased to over 20 knots (apparent) and pushed us to 8.5 knots.  This meant the true wind was almost 30 knots and the waves built to about 3 feet.  The boat was very overpowered with the full mainsail trying to push the boat to starboard while the autopilot worked hard to turn us back.  When the boat sails over 8 knots we say, "Oh oh.  We're going to break something!"  The forces on the boat are tremendous.  Just think how much power it takes to push a 42,000 boat past it's hull-speed (the maximum speed that a displacement hull can normally run through the water).  If we didn't want to get into trouble, we needed to roll in some of the mainsail.  Here's the problem....  In order to loosen the sail so we can pull some in, we need to turn into the wind - at least to 30 or 40 degrees off the wind.  With a 30 knot wind blowing and 3 foot (and growing) seas, it was going to be a wild ride.  

In order to keep the wind from blowing us over a lot, I rolled in about 1/2 of the jib before we turned upwind.  As we turned, we gradually tightened in the jib sheet to keep the sail working as we sailed from a broad reach to close reach.  It worked pretty well except the boat did heel over to about 40 degrees as the jib caught the now 30-35 knot winds.  As I was rolling in the mainsail, Laura was watching the furler to see how many turns I was taking on the sail.  I stopped at 5 turns which is about 1/3 of the mainsail rolled back on the furler.  Excellent!

I tightened the out-haul on the mainsail, crawled back to the helm and turned the boat back downwind while letting out the main-sheet.  At the same time, Laura let out the jib sheet.  When back on our broad reach course, I rolled out the rest of the jib and we were back to almost 8 knots but the boat felt much calmer and the autopilot was hardly working.  This is how to reef a mainsail while sailing downwind.

By early afternoon the winds had died back to the mid-teens we we repeated the process to take those 5 rolls back out of the main.  We sailed the rest of the way past Cove Point and turned west toward the Solomon's.

At 2:30pm we were pulling in all sails and motored into the Solomon Island anchorage.  We anchored in front of Anglers Pub thinking that maybe we would drop the dinghy and row into the pub for our anniversary dinner.  Today was our wedding anniversary - 15 years.  Yea!

We decided to stay on the boat and I cooked steaks on the BBQ while Laura made the fixin's.  Dinner was in the cockpit watching the sunset which was very nice.  Sailing for over 6 hours then a calm anchorage with great dinner.  Excellent anniversary!

Oh.  I think I was finally able to stop the leaking fitting on the sea strainer.  My larger pair of vice-grips fit in the tiny area and I was able to move the fitting about 1/16 of a turn.  No more drip!  Should have just brought the whole toolbox over there...

Friday, October 9th (Day 11)

Air temp 64, water temp 72, winds calm

Up early again and underway by 7am because the winds were supposed to be out of the south later in the afternoon.  I was hoping to get to Reedville before that happened.

It was very calm as we motored out of the creek with 7 or 8 other sail and power boats.  Everyone was traveling today.  Winds were calm and the bay was flat.  I adjusted the throttle for our normal cruise RPM and the boat ran over 6 knots all day.  Our normal cruise was 5.5 knots but the larger propeller I installed last Spring was working well.

Laura's video of today....

We turned into the Wicomico River around 2:30pm and had about a 45 minute motor to Walter and Mary's dock.  I decided to dock the boat pointing south because that was the direction of the stormy winds on Sunday and Monday.  This meant I had to turn around before the dock and I was worried about the shallow water and not hitting the dock.  It didn't help that our depthsounder alarm kept going off because the water was under 7 feet - we need 5.5 feet.

No problems really as i brought the boat into the dock and Laura tied us up nicely.  A short while later we were tied up and plugged into shore power for the first time since leaving Catskill. Laura walked up to the house to say hi to Mary while I decided on a nap.  Walter was away helping out at the local museum and we were all going out to dinner in a couple hours.

We cleaned up ourselves and the boat then walked up to the house at 5pm.  After a short greeting, we all climbed into the car for the drive.  A short while later we pulled into Good Luck Cellars for their "Wine down Friday" party.  It was under a large tent with lots of tables for social distancing.  We brought munchies and purchased a couple bottles of wine.  There was a food truck that sold local oysters and pork tacos.  I had their fried oysters which were tasty.  Here are Walter, Mary and Laura under the tent.

Behind them is the dance floor and a local musician setting up.  Walter explained that there would be music and we were looking forward to dancing after what seemed like several years.

After munching nice food from the truck, the music started.  I was pleasantly surprised to see many of the "locals" doing complicated line-dancing.  It looked like fun but Laura and I didn't feel like now was the time to learn.  I couldn't even follow their feet!  I was very impressed and took this short video.

We enjoyed the local wines, colorful dancers and good company.  Around 7:30pm we headed back to Reedville and Second Wind.  I didn't sleep well.  Maybe too much white wine?

Saturday, October 10th (Day 12)

We slept in a bit today.  Mary took Laura shopping for groceries and a few items I needed at the hardware store.  It rained most of the afternoon so I put up one of our rear canvas panels to keep the cockpit a little drier.  More rain is expected tomorrow and Monday so we will be on leak-watch.

Our Amazon package had arrived and it included some Wright's Silver polish that I ordered for cleaning up my flute.  I've had this flute for 28 years and never polished it.  I worked really well!  Here is just the silver mouth piece before and after.  I was impressed.

Laura arrived back with the groceries and hardware around 2pm in the rain.  We loaded everything back on the boat and she spent the next hour or so putting everything away.  I had a hard day playing and cleaning the flute so took a nap.  

We watched a little TV (thank you Walter and Mary for the free wi-fi) and Laura made sauteed Grouper for dinner that she had purchased at the local fish market.  As you can see, I spent a few hours organizing our pictures and videos then writing this blog.

If any of the videos are not showing in the blog, you can access all of them on our YouTube channel by clicking here.

We will probably hang here until the weather clears on Tuesday.  It looks like Monday we will see the remnants of Hurricane Delta.  It is not supposed to be too bad by time it gets all the way up here.  

Over the next couple days we will ask around and look at our cruising guides for information on the lower eastern shore.  I'd like to take a few days to see some new places before getting to Norfolk and back on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).