On the Road Again, ……

Wow, how quickly we jump back into cruising mode. I thought that we would forget how to do everything, but we ended up having more focus, and things have been going very smoothly; knock on wood.

We left Magothy Marina on Wed the 16^th, after having sundowners the night before with the crew of Haven (from Trenton), and saying goodbye to our new friends and the staff at the Marina. We travelled all of 2 miles before we dropped the hook and settled in for the night. A nice steak dinner, a few coolies, and a beautiful evening to start the next leg of our adventure.

Thursday we travelled as far as the Rhode River down the Chesapeake coast past Annapolis. It was recommended by our friend Dave, and looked to be a good place to hide from the storm that was blowing in, we were right. It was a wonderful, warm, sunny day, but the winds were light, and Vita was a power boat for most of it. It was short trip, and an early day, so we sat around and watched the rest of the boats coming in to anchor, I practiced my guitar, and later in the evening we dinghied over to our neighbour, a fellow Canadian, just to say hi. The highlight of the day though, was watching a pair of boats run aground, fail several times to set the anchor, and then drag several times in the night. Its surprising that they didn’t end up beat up on the beach. I was playing the guitar, and Serena mentioned about a boat coming in, I turned and said, that’s not good, they are headed straight for the “charted”, sunken island. Sure enough, 2 minutes later, clunk… They did manage to get off, and then their friends, arriving 45 mins later did the same thing. 4 guys on each boat, makes you wonder if they stole the boats, or were just very very drunk. They were most likely charters out of Annapolis though, makes you think twice about chartering your own boat!!

Friday there was a left over wind from the storm, and we had a nice push for most of the day as we sailed down the coast towards the Solomons Islands. It started out blustery, and Vita was making over 7 knots with the wind, the waves, and the current. But it was not to last, and slowly throughout the day the winds, and the waves laid down, eventually causing us to turn on the engine to make it the rest of the way in. We did find out something rather interesting on this day. The reacher (big lightweight sail), that came with the boat, when we bought her, is in fact, not a reacher, like I should be surprised. And I am not totally sure, I’ll have to look it up when I get a chance, but I think it is actually a DRS (big lightweight sail, but differently shaped than the reacher). I don’t think it really matters in our sail plan, but the reacher can be carried when the wind is more forward, where the DRS is a much bigger sail, designed to be sailed more downwind. As my understanding of downwind sails goes, the DRS is kind of a compromise between a spinnaker and a reacher. And I am sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you non-sailor types, but this is paramount to finding that the engine in your Ford Focus, is actually from a Toyota Corolla, explain that to the mechanic.

Saturday was supposed to have winds on the nose, but they were only going to be 5 – 10 knots, so we figured we’d give it a try. We wanted to catch some nice weather for travelling across the bay to Tangier Is. It is one of the places we really would like to visit before it sinks completely. It is slowly being consumed by the Chesapeake, and at times the streets are covered in water. It is an island rich in heritage, and would be a unique place to visit while its still around. However, as the weather man is never completely right, the winds were a little stronger, and true to Chesapeake Bay, the waves were short and steep. It took us 3 hours to make an hour of headway, so we said screw it, turned around and headed back to the Solomons. Today is expected to better, so we’ll try again.

Before we were initiated to the cruising life, we made fun of people who returned to port because of bad weather. Our thinking being that as sailors, we should be able to put up with a little bad weather, wind and waves. What we have discovered, and are surprised it never seemed to come up, is that it’s not the bad weather that stops us, it’s the fact that we are bashing to windward for no particular reason, and getting no where fast for our efforts. When it you look at it that way, its seems pretty foolish to keep going. I think this really came to light for me during the delivery, and now it is easy for me see the logic for own travels, we are cruisers after all.

Anyway, its time to get moving. Today should be a good one, then we have some bad weather coming in around mid week, so we’ll find a quiet place to hold up, do some shopping, reprovision, and take it easy while the winds kick the bay into a furry. We can definitely tell its time to go south though, the geese have been heard flying over head, it was 14 deg C. in the cabin this morning, and the leaves in the Chesapeake have started to turn over their fall colors.

Fair winds and following seas…..