Wednesday, November 3rd - Day 6 (cont...)
We motored into Georgetown Yacht Basin just after noon. As typical for us, we didn't even leave the boat for a walk after not being ashore for 6 days. Instead, we went through our checklist of putting the boat to bed and getting her (and us) ready to leave for "a few days". Our schedule had many options and we were not sure when we would be back. Earliest would probably be next Monday but it could be several weeks.
Here is Second Wind all snug in her slip at GYB.
The next morning, Laura's friend Janet and her husband Guy drove down from the Albany area to pick us up for a ride north. We arrived in Clifton Park just before 3pm and prepared for a busy weekend of personal business.
Monday, November 8th - Day 7
Everything went well with our business up north. My sister Denise and husband Tom drove us back to Maryland and Second Wind in the morning. We arrived around 1pm and said sad good-byes to them. They were so awesome to put us up for 4 days and we had a great time with them.
The boat fared well being alone for 4 days other than being very cold inside. I ran the heat-pump for heat plus turned on an electric heater in our cabin. In 1/2 hour the boat was toasty.
I made sure everything was ready to go tomorrow morning as we were planning on leaving as soon as we could see good enough to motor out of the marina without hitting anything. We even ran the engine for 20 minutes to warm it up. It was pretty cold and took a little longer to start when I turned the key.
We hit the sack early with the alarm set for 5:30am.
Tuesday, November 9th - Day 8
When I had checked the marine forecast over the weekend, it looked like we had 3 (or more) days of very nice weather for motoring / sailing down Chesapeake Bay starting today. Yesterday, it changed to just 2 days. This is why we wanted to leave as soon as we could and would bypass Annapolis this trip. We wanted to get to our friends Walter and Mary's in Reedville to be nicely protected for the storm predicted on Thursday night.
We were up right after the alarm went off. It was nice and toasty in the boat with the heat running all night. After dressing in many layers, we got ready to leave. I started the engine and configured our instruments while Laura spent a lot of time cleaning our clear cockpit windows. There was lots of dew this morning. Yuck.
By 6:15am we were slowly motoring out of the marina and down the Sassafras River back to Chesapeake Bay. It's about 8 miles from the marina to the bay so we had lots of time for breakfast and checking that everything was working right on the boat.
Laura took this colorful picture of the sunrise behind us.
The bay was very calm today with just 4-6 knots of wind on the nose. A few hours later we approached the Bay Bridge just before Annapolis. I'm surprised how nice this picture came out considering it's right into the Sun.
The bay stayed calm all day and we picked up the ebb tidal current in the afternoon for a little help with our speed.
Our short-term goal was to stay in Reedville with our friends Walter and Mary, at their private dock, for the storms Thursday night into Friday. It is approximately 120 nautical miles from Georgetown to Reedville. We typically would break this up into 3 easy days of around 40 miles each - Georgetown to Annapolis, Annapolis to Solomons, Solomons to Reedville. But, the weather would be deteriorating on Thursday so we needed to get there Wednesday afternoon or early Thursday.
If there was a good anchorage between Annapolis and the Solomons, it would have worked out great for us to just keep going for a few extra hours today. However, the only "close" anchorage was just 5 miles south of Annapolis. That wouldn't gain us much distance to make Reedville tomorrow. Instead, we decided to keep going to the Solomons with a estimated arrival of 8pm. The forecast was for light south winds during the night so we would just pull into the big bay south of the Solomons and anchor along the southern shore. This should be no problem in the dark because we wouldn't have to do any close-in navigating through the Solomon creeks with limited visibility
Because it was a beautiful, calm day with the boat running nicely on autopilot, we just relaxed and worked a few boat jobs - mostly cleaning and picking up. It was a pretty sunset as we motored past the Choptank River.
By 6pm it was totally dark but the crescent moon gave us a little light on the water. The boat ran fine and there were no problems navigating the middle Chesapeake in the dark with great instruments and good radar.
Just after 8pm we dropped our anchor along the southern shore in Lord Baltimore Bay (just south of Solomons). We watched TV for only a short time before we both decided to hit the sack early. It was a long, 14-hour day on the water but we should have a much shorter day tomorrow.
83 nautical miles today. 401 total trip miles from Catskill.
Wednesday, November 10th - Day 9
No alarm set for this morning but we woke just after sunrise. We had slept well in this calm anchorage and were ready to continue our journey south on another beautiful day.
Winds were predicted to be from the W to NW so I was hopeful we would be able to get some engine-off sailing this morning and afternoon.
As we pulled the anchor, the winds were dead calm. We motored out of the large bay back onto the Chesapeake just after 8am. Our winds did eventually pick-up a little from the west at 6-8 knots and we rolled out our jib and main to help our speed a bit. I was able to lower our engine RPM but there was not quite enough wind to turn it off and still make Reedville this afternoon. It was another pretty day on the Chesapeake.
There had been almost no wind for the past 2 days but, for some reason, there was a slight swell from the south that bounced us around a little. Not the calm, steady ride we had yesterday.
Sometimes when crossing the Potomac River, it can be quite rough with west winds. Today the winds stayed light enough that the crossing was very nice. In fact, we had left Solomons just as the tidal current changed to the south so we had helping current all morning. The boat stayed near 7 knots all day with our engine RPM down from our normal 2,100 to just 1,600.
We entered Ingram Bay just after 1pm, pulled in our sails and turned north up the creeks to Reedville. Here is the downtown Reedville from the water.
A few minutes later we tied up at Walter and Mary's dock, put the boat to bed after our cruise and walked up to the house to say hello. Here is Second Wind all safe in her slip for the next few days.
We had cocktails on the porch then dinner in the house together. It was lots of fun being back together with Walter and Mary - we really look forward to stopping here twice a year.
42 nautical miles today. 443 total miles from Catskill.
Thursday, November 11th - Day 10
We both were restless in the night - probably a result of a little too much partying last evening with Walter and Mary. Laura is going with Mary to a local woman's luncheon today and I'm working on the blog. Walter and Mary had plans for dinner tonight with local friends so we are on our own for the evening. Not a problem as we really enjoy each other's company.
Geez. Our weather forecast for the next week or so really turned to crap. Yesterday, it looked like Saturday we could leave for Deltaville then Sunday down the Bay to Norfolk. We would then have 3-4 nice travel days with light winds for getting to Oriental, NC when we have marina reservations for a month (or more) starting around Nov 15th to the 20th.
Now it looks like the only possible travel days are maybe Sunday and Tuesday - and even these days don't look great. The other days are winds out of the south or in the 30s. I'm not sure I've even seen a stretch of bad winds for Chesapeake Bay last for 10 days before. But, not to worry. We are in a protected area with good friends to keep us company. If we have to stay a little longer, oh well....
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