09/24/2008 Solomons Island back to Annapolis

09/19/2008 I spent the weekend at Solomons Island, located on the Pautuxent River. It is located about half way down the bay. There is a large boating community here and a popular tourist area. Being after Labor Day, it is pretty laid back. I had a good anchorage close to road in town and did many of my normal chores like laundry, food shopping and making my required stop at West Marine to see if there are any items on sale I will need for my push southward.

I was able to spend the weekend also with my good friends from my days at Motorola, Bill and Deb McDaniel. On Friday we had a late start on motored out after the Tall Ship Kalmar Nyckel, from Delaware. Saturday Bill came out we had a good sail out of the Pax River and towards the Eastern Shore. I don’t believe had sailed since I had my first boat in Colorado.

When we made it back to the anchorage and I had a couple of beers, I was able to do something on the boat I haven’t been able to do until that day. I was able to dive off of the boat. The bay has been full of jelly fish everywhere I have traveled since I have been here or I have been in real shallow water. On Friday the area was full of jelly fish again, but when we returned on Saturday, there none to be seen, and that is all that mattered to me. Now she is a real cruiser.

Sunday morning I woke to no power on the boat. Not a good way to wake in the morning. After some troubleshooting, I learned that there was one of my three batteries was discharged to 8 volts. This appeared to bring down the whole system. Bill and I took the battery to a local auto parts store and had it tested. It all tested out well. We reinstalled the battery, cleaned all of the terminal connections and kept an eye on the batteries. I am not sure what the problem is, except for a bad connection.

09/22/2008 I have been watching the weather and looking for a great weather window to head back north to Annapolis. I have friends flying in for four days starting on Saturday and needed to be there to pick them up. The wind has been consistent over the last week with winds from the northeast. On Friday NOAA indicated there would be an east wind that would be perfect for a nice broad reach up the bay and probably all the way to Annapolis non-stop. By Saturday the east wind changed to Sunday night only and then the wind would be back to a northeast wind. I decided to push on anyways, sail into the wind with tacking back and forth across the bay and do the trip in two to three days. As I was heading into the bay I saw a strange tower on the water. It appeared to be a tower not a boat or ship. After a quick check with the binoculars I saw that it was a large submarine traveling south with escort. I haven’t been on the water near a sub since sailing out in San Diego.

There are not many anchorages heading out of Solomons going north. I found an area to spend the night on the eastern shore up the Little Choptank River. There appeared to be a creek I could anchor on that would provide some protection and I did not need to travel to far from the main bay. I made this in about six and a half hours. The area I anchored in was off of a flat point. It provided protection from any wave action, but little from the building winds all night. There was a good whistle through the rigging. I also learned my water heater was not working. Always something.

09/23/2008 After a night of listening to the wind through the rigging and the small boat warnings on NOAA I needed to make a decision on whether to spend another day to wait for a beeter weather window or not. After listening to the weather reports and forecasts, I decided to push on. They were calling for 15-20 knots with gusting to 25. The reason I decided to push on was because it was only going to get worse with winds building into the thirties as the week went on and also rain coming in as early as Wednesday evening. There is a chance that if I didn’t push on I could be stuck in any anchorage I am in until Saturday or Sunday.

It is interesting that the only news I really care about is the weather. Starting last week all I hear on regular radio news is about the financial issues. Not saying that isn’t important, but it is already done and I will need to rely on our financial experts and government to do whatever they plan to do, but the weather is what is important. This is weather I had not sailed my boat in up this point and it was not taken lightly. I was talking with a catamaran owner in Solomons that had a Dolphin 4600. He was telling me about him and his wife being hit with a microburst of wind while sailing on the open ocean that was between 80-100 knots of speed. I need to know what NoRush can handle and I need to feel comfortable with her in any condition when I start leaving the US.

I sailed off of the anchor with a second reef put in the main sail. I have three reef points in the main sail and these are used to reduce the amount of sail area that is exposed to the wind. I also reefed in the jib. I was still sailing between 6-8 knots of boat speed. With any early start, and if the winds held, I decided I could make it all the way to Annapolis today. I have am trying to keep my sailing to daylight hours. When I started out in the morning, we had 2 foot seas and 15+ knots of wind. NoRush handled very well and I started to feel more comfortable with the sailing conditions. I do not always wear a PFD (life jacket), but under conditions I feel are warranted. This was one of those times. Even when I needed to go to the front deck to remove the spinnaker I keep in a bag up there, I strapped in using my harness. This was a first. I also noted that most boats were sailing south with the wind or motoring north into the wind. I was happy with the way NoRush sailed to the wind.

As the day went on, I either felt more comfortable in the conditions or they decreased, I took the reefing out of the jib and sailed on full jib with the reefed main. She did very well. We covered the 45 miles in about 9 hours and made it safely into Weems Creek. This is an anchorage Greg and I found on our first trip to Annapolis. It is well protected, there is a place to land the dinghy and I have good access via my bike to shopping, laundry, wifi and downtown Annapolis.