Oct 4

Today we start four days of transiting from Annapolis to Norfolk.  We plan to make about 45 miles each day and anchor out each night.   I have plotted routes and anchorages for the four days.  We didn't get off to a real early start because it was foggy when we awoke.  We ate and got the boat ready, then left the slip about 08:30.  I thought just leaving the slip might be a good trick, given the narrow fairway, but it worked ok because the slip opposite us was empty.  I was able to go forward into that slip a little, then back up and turn, then proceed out.  As we left the fairway, we motored over by Dances With Dragons.  They were on deck having their morning coffee, and we hollered our goodbyes and good lucks.  We then went over and tied up at the fuel dock.  We filled up with fuel and ice and headed out about 09:00.

The trip was pretty uneventful.  We had a fair current and winds from the stern.  We motorsailed at over seven knots most of the day.  That put us around today's destination, the Patuxent River, about 16:00.  There are several places here around the town of Solomon's Island to anchor.  We went up Back Creek to what is called Museum Cove.  There were already a half a dozen boats anchored there.  After a few minutes of looking around, checking depths and proximities to the other boats, we picked a spot.  We actually had to try and get the anchor to set several times.  We moved back a bit to another spot and finally got it to hold in a place where we didn't end up too close to other boats.  Within minutes of getting the hook down, four other boats came in to anchor.  They all looked around a while and found spots they were comfortable with even if they were a bit close.

Literally within minutes of getting the anchor down, we were greeted by a swan begging for handouts.  As we had entered the harbor, we spotted a family of two large white swans and four smaller brown ones.  I assume the four brown ones were this year's babies, and they have not turned white yet.  The guy begging now was not part of the family, but we saw the family several other times during the evening.

Time to launch the dinghy and see if I accomplished anything with the motor.  We got it in the water and started it up.  It idled fast, but would run without being choked.  Sounds like I just need to adjust the linkage a little.  At this point, I need a Phillips screwdriver.  Which brings me to another interesting tidbit of the day.  Just after we left the marina, Barb went to get something out of the forward head where we have lots of stuff stored.  The door was locked.  Somehow the little button that locks it must have gotten bumped.  Maybe something fell against it inside and moved the button.  The real bummer is that all my tools are in there, so I can't even try to take the handle apart.  Or adjust the dinghy motor idle.  I do have a all-in-one tool like a Leatherman that was compliments of our former employer BMC Software.  It is in the organizer at the helm, so perhaps I can adjust the idle with that.  I was able to loosen the linkage screw and get it to idle at normal speed.  It will need a better fix when I have the proper tool, but it will do for now.

Just to tempt fate, we figured we'd go for a dinghy ride.  There is still plenty of light, and there is supposed to be a nice little town here.  Before we got out of the anchorage we passed a trawler named Isis, from Somes Sound, ME.  I have been there and we plan to go there next summer, so I stopped to say hello.  We chatted with Dennis and Lorraine for several minutes.  Turns out they have just quit their jobs and started an adventure similar to ours.  We'll watch for them further down the road.  We then dinghied back down the creek to the main harbor.  We never did see the alleged public dinghy dock, so we headed back up the creek.  Past the anchorage we found the trawler Tusen Taak II, which we had spoken with in Wrightsville Beach, NC on our way north.  They weren't out on deck so we didn't get to say hi.  On up the creek, we found the Holiday Inn dock which was mentioned in the cruising guide.  By now though it was threatening to sprinkle, and we had left the boat wide open, so we headed back.  The dinghy test was a success.  Back at the boat, we hoisted the motor to it's mount and hoisted the dinghy.

For dinner, we grilled some salmon that we picked up yesterday before we left.  No, we haven't done any fishing yet.  We'll save that for the Bahamas.  We had a nice meal of salmon, rice, and a salad.  Followed by some Ben & Jerry's.  I'm sure glad we got that freezer.  Since we had no TV it was off to bed fairly early.

GPS N 38-57.921 W 76-28.814  Miles made good this leg 44. Total miles covered 2707.

Oct 5

We were up at the crack of dawn today for an early start.  Much as I thought it was early, several other boats were already weighing anchor as we got up.  We made coffee, and started getting ready.  The nice thing about being at anchor is that you have less to do to take off.  No power cords, or dock lines, and you probably got less stuff out below when you've just been parked overnight.  There is that extra task of hoisting the muddy anchor though.  By 07:45 we were getting underway.  The anchor came up pretty easy, although it was a bit muddy.  I have gotten used to going from anchor handling, directly to the shower on the swim platform to rinse my hands and legs where I get splattered.  In case I haven't mentioned it, the boat does have what is called an anchor windlass.  This is basically an electric winch that will hoist the anchor for you with the push of a button.  Unfortunately, the windlass is mounted in the anchor locker in a place that makes it virtually worthless for anything except securing the chain to while at anchor.  So, I do it all manually.  Someday I may have to address the issue if I get to old and weak to do it myself.

Today was similar to yesterday, except the wind was on the beam as were the seas.  We motorsailed at about seven knots again.  The wind both days was enough to sail if were weren't trying to make anchorages and get good spots, but by motorsailing, we get there at the same time as any trawlers.  Hopefully once we get to the islands, I'll get over this mentality of being on a schedule.  It has also been a little chilly each day.  It's probably been in the low 70's, but out on the water, in the wind, that seems cool.  So we've been wearing sweatshirts, although I haven't given up the shorts.

Our destination today is an anchorage north of Sandy Point near the mouth of the Great Wicomico River in VA.  Yes, we have changed states.  I didn't realize that until Barb asked, and we got the regular road atlas out and looked.  We passed the mouth of the Potomac River without realizing it.  The Potomac is the border between Maryland and Virginia.  Washington, DC will have to wait for another trip.  Speaking of which, we have kind of decided that we need to come back north and plan to spend a whole summer exploring the Chesapeake some year.  The anchorage is a nice wide open cove, pretty much protected from all sides.  The depth is about seventeen feet right up to about a hundred feet off the shore.  There are houses on the shore, but not a town per se.  In fact, we are far enough from a real town that we have no cell service or computer connection.  But the Sirius radio works and Jimmy is singing.  And the rum and coke is cold.

Once anchored, I attacked the door to the head that appears locked.  All day, I kept coming up with options of how to open it, but they all involved tools which were inside.  One tool I did have available was a good stout knife.  I took the blade and tried to jimmy the latch, expecting that to be much too easy of a solution.  It popped right open. Nothing is ever that easy on a boat.  The lock button was in the locked position, so it must have gotten bumped as something was put in there.  At least we now know it's easy to break into.

I started planning tomorrow's itinerary and we decide to make an alteration.  We planned to go into Mobjack Bay and anchor again.  That was about forty miles, of which ten or twelve is getting up the river to the anchorage.  Friday is supposed to be bad weather, so we decided to leave at dawn and make a long day of it and get to Norfolk tomorrow.  It will be about a sixty-five mile day.  We did several days longer than that on the way up, but the days were longer.  If we start early, we should still be there before dark and skip the bad weather Friday.  A good sailor knows the key to handling bad weather is to not be out in it.  Why didn't I think of that a week ago when we went to Baltimore?

This morning we received an e-mail from my daughter Melani, pointing out that I have spelled my granddaughter's name wrong in the logs.  Now, you may notice that Melani is not spelled the traditional way (Melanie).  When Melani was a teenager, she cursed me for spelling her name an unusual way, because that meant she was always having to correct people.  So what does she do as an adult?  She names her older son Mitchel (not Mitchell) and her older daughter Jaycelyn (not Jacelyn).  Well, my apologies to Melani and Jaycelyn.  Spelling and pronouncing peoples names correctly has always been one of my pet peeves, so I hate to be guilty of not doing one right and will go back and amend the logs.

GPS N 37-49.244 W 76-18.819  Miles made good this leg 43. Total miles covered 2750.

Oct 6

Since we have a long day ahead of us today, we got an early start.  I awoke at about 06:00 and started getting ready to go.  We had a good night, with a light breeze blowing all night.  There was only one other boat in the large anchorage and they were no where near us, so I slept well knowing we were secure.  By 07:00 we were on the move in the first light of dawn.  We motored out from behind Sandy Point and back into the Chesapeake and turned south.  Today's revised course will take us almost due south for about fifty miles.  We will be a few miles from either shore, but out of the main shipping lane, so it should be a boring trip.  (Like airplane trips, boring trips can be good.)  The wind today is from the southeast.  Tuesday it was northeast and a very comfortable ride.  Wednesday it was east but still five to ten knots, so the ride was not bad.  Today, with the wind from the southeast, we are taking the seas on the port bow.  Nothing like a week ago, but not the most comfortable day.  We gave the cat a Dramamine to knock him out and hopefully keep him from getting sick.

In order to make it to Norfolk in one day, we have to make good about six knots or better all day.  We start off with a fair current and are making about seven and a half for two hours.  Then, as the tide changed, I could see the speed slow down, a tenth of a knot at a time, until we were down to a little under six.  I kicked up the engine a little to keep us at six.  Even though our two hours over seven would give us some leeway, it was a mental thing that I wanted to stay over six. 

The trip was uneventful, although we saw a couple of interesting things.  Where we are, there is a natural deep channel where large ships would stay, but there is a wide area of water over forty feet deep, and barges go anywhere in this area instead of staying in the marked channel.  We had passed several barges during the day, none of them close enough to change course or get excited about.  Then I noticed one that caught my eye.  It didn't get my attention because of it's course, but rather because of it's cargo.  From several miles away, I just saw something round.  I got the binoculars and still couldn't tell what it was, but it was round.  Round just isn't a shape we normally see on the water.  As it got closer, we could more clearly see that the round part was the cargo on a barge, being towed by a tug.  When it finally passed, we still were not sure what it was, but it looked like five chunks of a rocket.  We learned later from Barb's brother that there is a rocket launching facility somewhere up in the Chesapeake, so maybe that's what it was. 

Second interesting thing was another encounter with a warship.  There is lots of Naval activity around Norfolk, of course, and we heard several warships speak to other boats as we were getting closer.  We heard one talk to another sailboat, and then to an outbound barge.  The warship was coming in the main channel from offshore into Norfolk.  We were coming southbound from the Chesapeake and were going to enter the offshore channel just outside Thimble Shoals.  By my estimation using my radar the warship and MoonSail were going to get to the Thimble Shores light at just about the same time.  Since I had heard them call a sailboat before, I assumed they would be wondering what my intentions were.  So I called them first.  I told them I would be turning into the channel in the same direction they were going, and that I would be staying out of their way.  They very nicely replied and thanked me for announcing my intentions.

The last interesting thing was probably the oddest.  As we were getting close to the Thimble Shoals Channel, we saw and heard a helicopter coming eastbound out of the Norfolk vicinity.  Now helicopter traffic around any city is not odd, and around Norfolk, military helicopter traffic is expected.  But, this helicopter was low and slow.  It seemed it was hovering, but then we could tell it was moving, just very slowly by helicopter standards.  Then we noticed that it seemed to be towing something in the water.  As we got closer we confirmed through the binoculars that, indeed, it was towing some kind of sled.  It went eastward out into the bay, close enough that we could get a good look at this sled but still have no idea what it was.  I guessed perhaps it was testing some kind of equipment that needed more abuse than a boat could give it.  For even though the helicopter seemed to be moving slowly, when we looked at the sled through the binoculars, it was slamming through the water at a pretty good clip.  It passed south of us before we turned west into the Thimble Shoals Channel, but then after we were in the channel, we could tell it was coming back.  It passed south of us but close enough that the mist stirred up by the prop wash of the helicopter drifted over us.  The helicopter went into the bay that ends at the Norfolk Naval Air Station.  Again, we learned later from Barb's brother, that the sled contains submarine detection equipment.  It is used to detect small two or three man subs that might be used to sneak into a place like the Norfolk Navy Base.

As we proceeded down the Elizabeth River into Norfolk/Portsmouth, we passed the navy base.  When we went north through here in July, it was a very hazy day and we couldn't see much even though we were only a few hundred yards away.  We had a much better view today.  And, there seemed to be much less security presence today.  We only saw two of the little security patrol boats, and one guy with a big gun standing on the bow of one of the docked aircraft carriers.  Who knows how much we didn't see.

Just past the Navy base, we noticed something we had not seen on our way north.  There is a place called the Norfolk Coal Dock.  Here they load coal from rail cars onto ships bound for places that must not have coal.  The rail cars are put into a tube which turns them over in a 360 and dumps them coal out.  The coal goes onto a series of conveyor belts and ends up on the ship.  What was more interesting was that the empty rail car then gets turned loose down a small hill, onto a track that ends with an uphill stretch.  It then switches direction and goes back to the empty car line.  Had to explain, but really an impressive example of letting nature (gravity) do the work for you.

A ways further down the river, we were passing a container ship dock, when I noticed one of the ships was moving.  There were two ships at the dock, and one was clearly tied to the dock.  The other was moving with the assistance of two tugboats though.  It is amazing to me how your perception of which way a ship is moving can be confusing.  For a minute, I thought the tugs were pushing the ship to the dock.  Then, I finally realized they were bringing it out into the channel.  I throttled up to full throttle, and moved over to the other side of the channel as we passed by the stern of the ship.  After we were clear, I realized that if we had been in the way, the ship probably would have said something to me.  They knew better than I did, how soon they would actually be in the channel, and they knew I would be past them.  But, it got my attention.

Next, as we were almost to the marina, we were approaching a large cruise ship.  Again, my perception deceived me.  I could tell, the ship was in a floating dry dock.  But, there was water on both sides of it.  For a minute, I thought the whole thing was moving.  But, the wench with the binoculars assured me that I was simply hallucinating, and the dry dock was indeed docked.  She was right again.  Once passing the securely dry docked Disney Magic, we turned into Ocean Marine Yacht Marina.  We went to the fuel dock first and filled up with diesel.  I figured out later that we didn't actually fill up, apparently because the fuel foamed, but we're good for the next leg of the trip.  From the fuel dock, our assigned slip is almost directly behind us.  The dock hand asked if I wanted to back in or go bow in.  Backing in would make leaving easier, but given the wind, I wasn't sure I could do it.  The dock hand helped us cast off, and I started backing up.  Surprisingly, I was able to back across the fairway and into the slip without a problem.  To my amazement, the dock hand arrived at the slip to help us again, just as we were getting the lines secure.  He had to run a long way up one dock and then down the other to get there that fast.  While we didn't really need his help, I appreciated his efforts and rewarded him appropriately.

Literally minutes after we docked, Barb got a call that her son, A.J., had landed at the airport, and her brother had met him.  They are headed home, and we are going to spend the night on the boat.  We have a couple of things that need attending to before we go off for the weekend.  One is simply cleaning, and the other is that we noticed the main bilge pump is not running again.  I went up to the office to check in before they closed at six.  To my surprise, they remembered us from the northbound trip.  As I was checking in, I asked them if the work on the Disney Magic went on 24/7.  It does.  Since they are right across the river from us, it is a bit noisy.  They also warned me that a 117 foot yacht would be docking behind us at about 03:00. 

GPS N 36-49.893 W 76-17.725  Miles made good this leg 67. Total miles covered 2817.

Oct 7 thru 9

We had a good nights sleep.  Turns out the sounds from the Disney Magic refit are not that bad when you're inside the boat, and although I heard it, the docking of the big yacht right behind us was not a problem.  After coffee, I looked at the bilge pump problem, while Barb swabbed the decks.  For a change, a boat problem turned out to be easy.  The only problem was that during the work in Georgetown, one of the battery cables had been moved so that now it was keeping the float switch from being able to rise enough to kick on the pump.  I moved the cable and added a couple of wire ties, and the problem was solved.

A little before noon, Barb's brother and A.J. showed up to get us.  We went to Jim & Lou Anne's house and spent the weekend with them.  While they felt bad that the weather for the weekend was rainy and we couldn't do anything, we felt like just being in a house with TV and friends was better than being cooped up on the boat for the rainy weekend.  We took A.J. to see the Navy shipyard from the land side.  Now we have seen it from both sides twice.  We went to see the movie Flightplan Saturday.  It was a good movie.  I thought I guessed the plot, but was wrong.

Sunday, we went out to a mid-afternoon lunch, took A.J. to the airport, and then came back to the boat.  Jim & Lou Anne spent a little while with us, and then we said our goodbyes.  In the morning, we will start our push south.  The plan is to take the ICW south to Charleston.  This should take eight days.  We plotted the intended courses and anchorages and will post in a week or so.

GPS N 36-49.893 W 76-17.725  Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 2817.