Tuesday, October 4th - Day 9
Cold (low 50s), rain and thunderstorms all day
This is the 4th day of cold and storms from the remnants of hurricane Ian. We hunkered-down in the boat with the heat on all day and frequently checked the weather radar to see what was heading our way.
Late yesterday afternoon the rain let up a bit so I went for a walk across the bridge to check out the closed-down Yacht Basin. It was sad to see the offices closed and (almost) nobody around. There were sill 20-30 boats at the docks who (we were told) were seasonal boaters that had paid for the summer then their marina closed. The water and power were still on. I had to wonder how long that would last.
I walked up the hill to the ice cream shop (it was closed. Dang!) and took this picture of the Georgetown Harbor. I put a little red arrow on the screen just to the right of center. That's where we've been docked for 4 days. Note that you can click on any of these pictures and they will go full-screen.
The rest of the day Laura did some baking and worked a few jobs to get the boat ready to leave tomorrow. The forecast is for 20+ knot winds in the morning and settling down in the afternoon. Yea!
Wednesday, October 5th - Day 10
Air temp 56, cloudy, winds NW at 20. Water temp 62
I didn't set the alarm today because I didn't plan on leaving early with the high winds and seas. We were up around 8:30am and underway at 9:30am Winds at the marina were light - less than 10 - out of the NW. I love when it works out you can just release the lines and let the wind gently blow the boat away from the dock.
Our 5 days at Sailing Associates were excellent. Too bad the weather wasn't nicer and we could have hung out with some of the other boaters. On Sunday afternoon during a slight drizzle, I went up in the cockpit and played my flute for a while. I didn't think there was anyone around. But over the next couple days I had 5-6 boaters ask me if that was me playing and saying they liked it. Guess they were around, just hidden....
On our way out the Sassafras River, I saw a couple boats anchored that had been there on our way in. I thought to myself they had to be cold without full-time heat on the hook. The temps had been low 50s during the day and mid-40s at night. I was happy to be at the marina with full-time heat.
We motored the 10 miles back to the Chesapeake Bay and the winds picked up as we came to the more open areas. As we turned SW near the end of the river, the winds moved off the bow and became excellent for sailing. We rolled out a reefed mainsail and full jib. This picture is a short time later with the engine off (Yea!). 8.5 knots. When we hit over 8 knots under sail, we usually say, "Slow down or we're going to break something!" In this case we had about a knot of helping current so it was pretty nice. The wind instrument is the last one of the right. 15.3 knots of wind on the beam. Excellent!
We had a nice sail for over 3 hours until the winds died to single digits. Then we motor-sailed the rest of the day.
I had no plans for where we were heading because I didn't know how rough the bay would be with the high winds overnight. If they were bad we would have anchored someplace close and waited them out. If the bay was friendly, I wanted to make at least Annapolis. Annapolis is one of our favorite stops and we would usually pick up a city mooring - maybe in Back Creek. But, because we are a little earlier then normal, the boat show starts tomorrow and the place will be crazy. My plans were to bypass Annapolis this year. Dang. No burger and milk shake at Chick 'n Ruths....
The winds and seas calmed as the afternoon went on so I was looking for a new-to-us anchorage a little farther south of Annapolis. Because we were averaging almost 7 knots, I thought we could make a nice little bay off the Choptank River before dark. Here we are motor-sailing in the early afternoon. Now the winds are off the starboard quarter (broad reach) so the sails are way out. The winds helped us all day.
The rest of our day was quite nice. Checking the weather forecasts, I now thought we could be in Reedville tomorrow and Norfolk Sunday. I called Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake, VA (just south of Norfolk) and was able to make a reservation for 2 months of "wet storage." This was great news for us since this is a full service marina that we has worked on our boat before - and we liked the management and work they did.
My estimates were a little off and we anchored just after dark. I would not recommend this for a new anchorage - especially on Chesapeake Bay where there are lots of fish traps in the shallow waters. But, it worked out for us and we spend a quiet night just off Tilghman Island just a few miles up the Choptank river. The light green line is the course we followed down the bay. Annapolis is upper left and I marked where we anchored with a red X. The red dotted line was our track leaving the next morning.
Thursday, October 6th - Day 11
Air temp 64, CLEAR AND SUNNY, winds NW@5--10 - Sea temp 63
I had the alarm set for 5:45am and we were up a short time later. The eastern sky was just starting to brighten as we prepared the boat for another day on the water. This anchorage was lovely with the NW to W winds overnight but it would be deadly with anything south or east.
Blue skies and a bright Sun brought the temps into the low 70s. We probably looked like "The Clampetts" as we had all of our boat towels hanging from the life-lines. Our first "drying day" in almost a week!
We had NW winds around 10-15 knots that helped us down the bay for the first few hours. By 10 am we had the sails pulled in and were motoring down a pretty calm Chesapeake Bay.
The day continue calm and warm as we motored across the Potomac River and turned SW to the Great Wicomico River. We tied up at our friends Walter and Mary's dock just after 4pm. Two 60+ nautical miles days got us here from Georgetown. A few years we were not here until early November when the days are much shorter. Then it's (3) 40 mile days.
Now we could relax for a couple days and we were just in time for cocktail hour!
Mary had prepared a beef stew for dinner. Laura used up the last of our apples for a tasty apple pie dessert. Doesn't it look great!
We had cocktails with Walter on the porch. Mary was at a meeting and didn't get home until a little later. It was a nice dinner with good friends (and wine of course...)
Friday, October 7th - Day 12
Air temp 59 (going into 70s), clear, calm and sunny. Water temp 67
I forgot to mention that yesterday was our first day in shorts since we left Catskill almost 2 weeks ago. Today was another "shorts" day.
I did get a walk in this morning between helping with the laundry and a few jobs on the boat. Here is Main St in Reedville looking down toward the waterfront. Very pretty day...
We slept in a bit this morning and Laura was in "get the boat ready to leave her" mode. We had 3 days before we would leave Second Wind in Norfolk and lots to do Today was laundry and freezer(s) day. I might leave 1 freezer on with the boat in storage but we needed to clean out the refrigerator and other freezer. 7 years ago we ripped out the original refrigeration and installed (2) new Vitrifrigo freezers and a new Vitrigrigo refrigerator. This work is all detailed in our forth book "Sail On" available on Amazon kindle. Click HERE for a preview of the book.
Last Winter, when we had to leave the boat in Oriental, NC for a few weeks, I purchased and installed a Siren Marine "Siren 3 Pro" boat monitoring system. I love it! You can check out their website HERE. It has a main control box that is connected wirelessly to sensors throughout the boat to monitor things like battery voltage, freezer or refrigerator temp, air temp in the cabin, high water in the bilge, dockside power, etc. It constantly sends the status of these sensors to the main computer at Siren Marine over cellular data (costs me $15 / month). I have an app on my phone that connects to my data on the Siren Marine computer to get real-time alerts and historical analysis. Here is the main screen on the app.
Notice it shows where the boat is and several status buttons below. "Main Entry" is currently highlighted because our companionway is open.
As long as I have telephone or internet access, I can monitor what's happening on the boat anywhere in the world and respond if needed. For example, if the shore power goes off, I can call the marina where the boat is and ask them to see why we lost shore power. Also, I can configure a phone notification for any of these. If the shore power goes off, I can an instant alert. Great piece of mind when you are away from the boat. Ok. 'nuff said....
Tonight and tomorrow there is a front coming through here with high winds and seas. Depending on when everything calms down tomorrow, I would like to move south to at least Deltaville, VA which would give us a chance of sailing to Norfolk and Great Bridge on Sunday. It's possible we won't make Great Bridge until Monday but that still gives us time to close up the boat before picking up our rental car Tuesday morning. Wish us luck!
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