Sunday, October 15th (Day 8) - Sassafras River
Temp 58. Water temp 64. Winds out of N-NW 15-20
Very windy today (as predicted) and we spent a quiet day on the boat. In the past, the only electronic entertainment we would have had while anchored here was movies off my computer. (I have over 700 movies and mini-series that I've ripped off our DVDs on the computer so we have lots of choices.) But this time, we have full Internet access off our Starlink so it's a different world.
It rained quite a lot last night and this morning and our wind generator was pumping amps into our batteries. With keeping the inverter on all night for the Starlink, we would normally use about 180-200 amp/hours overnight. Last night we were only down 70. Nice!
I started the generator and rain it for most of the day to give us "house like" heat. It was chilly outside (only went into low 60s) but toasty in the boat.
Later in the afternoon, the skies cleared a bit and the winds died to 10-15. I took this picture of our anchorage in the late afternoon.
We streamed a few shows in the evening and hit the sack early. Not too exciting, huh?
Winds tomorrow should be good for sailing down the bay. Not sure of our plans yet. The Annapolis boat show ended today so the city and especially the moorings will still be blocked by the boat show docks. If we make good time, we could be in Reedville Tuesday evening which would be two 60ish mile days instead of three 40s. We'll see what the weather and seas are like.
Monday, October 16th (Day 9) - Sassafras River to Choptank
Temp 52. Water temp 63. Winds light out of the NW. Sunny
63 nautical miles today (384 total trip miles)
Anchor up at 7:30am with lots of work to clean the mud off the chain. This anchorage has great holding (we've sat out 40 knot winds here in the past) but it is muddy. It took me about 30-40 seconds to clean off every 6 feet of chain with our washdown hose and we had over 100 feet of chain out. Yuck!
It was a pretty day as we motored the 5 miles back to the Chesapeake, Winds were slightly off the starboard bow and I thought we would at least have help from the winds when we turned southwest then south once we got back to the channel.
Here we are motoring out of the Sassafras River under blue skies.
We turned more south an hour or so later and the winds picked up to more than single digits. Woo Hoo! Engine off and time to enjoy our first sail of the trip.
The tide was helping our speed a little as we sailed 7.5-8 knots on a pretty calm bay. Second display from left shows 7.7 knots and the far right display shows 12 knot winds. Perfect!
A short while later we approached the Bay Bridge - still sailing. Laura took this picture looking up at our sails. You can see the Bay Bridge in the distance.
As we sailed under the bridge, the winds died as expected because they were blocked by the bridge and abutments. We slowly sailed along at 3-4 knots waiting for the winds to pick back up over 5-6 knots. They never did....
We started the engine and motor-sailed the rest of the day. Plan was to turn up into the Choptank River and anchor behind the first bit of land. This should be nice for the NW winds predicted for tonight.
Here is a snapshot of our AquaMaps chartplotter showing our track into the anchorage where I drew a red circle. North is up and Annapolis is upper-left. The green lines going in and out of the anchorage were our tracks from this year and one other time.
The winds did pick up as we turned up the Choptank and were blowing about 15 knots as we anchored at 5:45pm. This anchorage is only about 1/2 mile from the NW shore but closer to 1 mile from the north.
Pretty sunset that lit up the bottom of the clouds around us.
A couple hours after anchoring, the winds moved to out of the north and increased to 20 knots. What the heck? The forecast showed single digit winds out of the NW all night.
We spent a fairly comfortable night anchored here but our alertness level was heightened by the high winds. Several times I woke up in the night to hear the wind howling through the rigging but the boat was fairly stable with only a slight bobbing on the maybe 1/2 foot waves going by.
Tuesday, October 17th (Day 10) - Choptank River to Reedville, VA
Temp 56. Water temp 65 (a little warmer). Winds N-NW around 10 most of the day.
63 nautical miles today (447 total trip miles)
A few times I woke up in the night listening to the howling wind, I thought we would not be moving today or maybe just to a better anchorage close-by. But, when I woke around 5am, the winds had died and I couldn't hear them at all. Wow! What was that all about?
We slept in a little and pulled our anchor at 8:30am. It came up clean this time and we were under way in less than 5 minutes.
Winds were about 10 out of the NW as we made our way around the shallows and turned SW then S down the bay. Once we turned south, the winds were behind us and the apparent winds were only 5-6 knots. Bummer.
We had pulled out the mainsail so I let the sheet all the way out to port which caught a little of the wind and helped us along. The current was with us for a few hours and our ETA to Reedville showed 6-6:30pm. I didn't think that would hold because the tidal current would turn against us this afternoon and the winds were supposed to die.
It was a pretty day on the water and the Sun warmed us up in the cockpit. Just a light following-sea and nice ride.
The winds eventually died and we pulled in the mainsail. We continued to motor south on a calmer and calmer Chesapeake.
Several hours later, about 1/2 way across the Potomac River, the winds filled in from the NW-W so I rolled out the Jib for help against the tidal current. The clouds also came over us and it was cloudy to the west but clear to the east. The sky stayed that way for the rest of the day.
We were now only about 15 miles from Reedville and our ETA was still before dark. Nice!
1/2 hour before Smiths Point Light, the wind increased to over 15 knots. We could have rolled out the mainsail and probably sailed for the next hour or so but I didn't think the winds would last. The prediction was still for single digit winds. We motor-sailed passed the light and turned SW toward the Great Wicomico River.
Our wind did die a little while later and we pulled in the jib to motor on calm waters now that we were in the lee of Virginia. We wound our way through Reedville and tied up at our friends Walter and Mary's dock right at 6pm.
It took Laura and I about 1/2 hour to secure the boat, hook up power and clean everything up a little from several days on the water. We cleaned ourselves up a bit too then headed up to the house for dinner and catching up with good friends.
We had a very pleasant evening of pot-luck leftovers and hearing all about their latest adventure - a 30 day cruise through the Northwest Passage above Canada. Of course, we all enjoyed a few glasses of wine to help lighten the party.
Back to the boat a few hours later and we retired early.
Wednesday, October 18th (Day 11) - Reedville, VA
Our plans are to stay here several days enjoying the company of good friends while catching up on some personal business. It will probably be early next week before we set sail again for points south. Current plan is to spend the winter in Marathon again with our friends at Burdines Marina.
Here is Second Wind at her temporary home in Reedville.
Laura and I enjoyed a short walk this morning - our first in many days more than 40 feet - while we also made use of the house laundry.
I'll continue the blog when we are underway.
More???
If you've enjoyed our blog, it goes back through 5 years of our travels on the U.S. East Coast and Bahamas. We did keep a detailed blog before that and I've used it to published 4 inexpensive (less than $5) books on Kindle if you would like to read about more of our travels from 2007 to 2018. You can find more information on our sailing books by clicking HERE.
Thanks for traveling along with us!
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