10/22/2008 Solomon’s Island to Norfolk

10/19/2008 What a ride. We had another day of 15-20 and gusting to 30 knot winds out of the north east. We didn’t move too quickly Sunday morning. We took our time cooking up a good breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast, cleaning up and finding a place for our trash. We worked on leaving the dock at 10:00. The winds were pushing from the beam and pinning us against the dock. After some careful planning and muscle power, we were able to slip away from the dock and off we took.


I put a single reef in the main sail as it is recommended to reef the sail at different wind strengths. The first reef should be put in at 20 knots, the second around 25 and the third at 30. At the boat show, I was told that that she would sail great without a reef in 30 knots. I am sure she will, but I still have new boat owner jitters (NBOJs). To get out of the Pautuxent River we needed to put in two tacks as it was a tight reach and heavy winds. After we cleared the main channel mark, we turned off the wind and took off like a rocket.

The seas started off at about 3-4 feet and as the day went on grew to 5-6 feet. These were no rollers, but steep faced waves do to the shallow water of the Bay. We were racing down the waves and surfing on them and hitting speed of 12, 13 and finally 14.5 knots. This was under a single reef main and jib. We had water flying off of the bows and rushing past the stern of the boat. I would naturally move to the back of the boat as far as possible. This is from my days on the trimaran when we wanted as much weight as possible on the back of the boat to keep the bows from digging in. I don’t think my weight makes a whole lot of difference on this boat. I am trying an option on the blog of video clips. I hope this shows well. This is showing the rooster tail off of the back of the starboard stern and the speed we were traveling as we surfed.

After this wild ride we worked our way up the Great Wicimico River to Reedsville, VA. We have left Maryland and now in Virginia. We were looking for a place to anchor when I looked off to my right and saw three sailboats sitting nice a peacefully on a completely protected cove. We went in, dropped the anchor and if you were not on the bay earlier today, you would never believe there was any wind at all. We had a great sunset, had a couple of cocktails, grilled up some Italian sausage and had a wonderful evening.

10/20/2008 We left Reedsville at 7:00AM and were the first boat out. We had about 3-4 boats follow us down the river as we took off. Today was a shorter sailing day, and a lot lighter air. We still have the air out of the north so we did not have to tack at all, but we weren’t surfing at all.

As we left the river, I was up on the front deck working on the spinnaker for today’s sail. All of the sudden I heard a release of air. Whoosh. I looked up and right off of my starboard bow was a porpoise. There was a small pod of four that had cruised up next to us to see what was going on. This really caught me by surprise as I was not aware that there would be this type of sea life in the Bay do to the low salt content in the brackish water. They hung with us for about a minute, but not long enough for any pictures. I always take porpoises as a good sign for the day.

We had light sailing all day and needed to motor the last hour and a half. We anchored on the Chissman Creek off of the York River. We were in a protected marsh for the evening.

10/21/2008 Today we left at 7:00AM again as headed towards Hampton, VA. We wanted to get a jump on the weather as they are calling for heavy weather to roll in about 10:00Am this morning. We only had 20 or so miles to go. We had winds out of the west today and we sailed all the way down on the coast without any tacking until we arrived at Hampton Roads. This is a very busy port with shipping of all sorts, a large naval base, the largest ship building complex in the world and the gateway to the Inter Coastal Waterway (ICW).

We needed to tack multiple times to make it through the narrows of the Hampton Roads as we dodged naval exercises (being broadcasted on VHF) and barge and shipping traffic. We then hooked a right and headed up the channel to the town of Hampton. It has a very clean and revitalized waterfront. I met the dock master of the City Pier at the boat show and he was offering a free night on the docks. I took him up on the offer and it is a nice place to sail into. We had lunch and dinner out and picked up some small groceries.

I do recommend a stop here if you are sailing or cruising through. While we are here, Ed is going to get off and head back to Denver. I will get caught up on a little laundry and ready the boat for the trip down the ICW. We have decided, if the locks are working, we are going to head south through the Dismal Swamp. This is the old route for the head waters of the ICW. It has been in use since the 1800s. Most boats don’t travel down it because of it’s shallow depths or the slow speeds you must use.