Chesapeake Bay Cruise June 08

We are back home after cruising up the Chesapeake western shore as far as Reedville. We had a very enjoyable trip with lots of great sailing. That's the advantage of not being on a schedule - you get to sail where the wind takes you.
Thursday through Sunday we worked our way slowly to the north, with excellent sailing each afternoon in the sea breezes. One day we sailed all day with the spinnaker up. The other days we were able to use the whisker pole to pole out the genoa and sail wing-on-wing.



Each day we arrived in our selected anchorage spot in the later afternoon. Here we are relaxing on Cockrell Creek just north of Reedville. We toured around town, checking out "Millionaires Row" from the heydays of the Menhaden Fleet fishing. This is a very picturesque town.




Monday evening brought some severe thunderstorms with winds gusting 40-50kts. We had just enough time to securely anchor and prepare the boat for the approaching storms. An hour later the storms moved on ending with a gorgeous double rainbow and brightly silver lined clouds.



Monday and Tuesday we worked our way back to Yorktown with two great days of downwind sailing. By Tuesday we had the whisker pole handling procedures down pat.
A very successful trip with nothing breaking and no emergencies. A good tune up for our planned trip to Nova Scotia later in the summer.

Here's a link to more pictures of the trip. More photos.

Up the Chesapeake

We finally set sail on Tides Inn on Thursday after a month of electronics installations and other commitments. Here’s a photo of Sue up the mast replacing our VHF antenna which was damaged during a strong wind storm during the winter. The new antenna provides much better reception (we can now hear signals from Atlantic City to the NC Outer Banks) which makes us wonder if the previous antenna was perhaps defective to begin with and that’s why the wind bent it?
We were supposed to be heading for NY City to meet up with Greg and Beth at their weekend independent artist show, but the wind gods did not cooperate and we preferred not to motor for 48hrs into the wind. So, like true cruisers, we checked the wind direction and determined where we could go. We’ve been making our way up the western shore of the Chesapeake.

Thursday we were treated with the unique pleasure of seeing the schooner Virginia come sailing down the York River just as we were coming out of the Poquoson River. We zipped up in formation with them and exchanged captain to captain pleasantries, then continued on our way up to Mobjack Bay. I took some great photos of the Virginia under full sail.
Thursday night we anchored along the north shore of Mobjack Bay, just inside the New Point Comfort lighthouse. Normally this would not be a good anchorage site due to its exposure, but the winds were very light.
Tonight we are up a protected creek from Milford Haven. When we arrived the winds were blustery from the south, but they died completely right at sunset so it is now cool and quiet.
The new electronics have been working great. We now have HF radio to get offshore weather and send position reports from anywhere at sea, plus a WiFi antenna that lets us pick up wifi signals from about 1 mile or so. I updated our position via HF earlier, and am now waiting to see if we can get a wifi signal to download photos and these words to the blog.
Hi to all… having a great time…. Too bad you’re not with us!
Mark & Sue

Sailing on Schooner Virginia

One of these days we'll get to sail on our own boat, but meanwhile I spent the past weekend working and sailing on the schooner Virginia.
On Thursday, we sailed from her berth by Nauticus in Norfolk up through Hampton Roads to the city of Hampton where the Virginia would participate in Blackbeard Pirate Days. Friday was a work day and 3 of us sanded and oiled a good portion of the brightwork - pilot house, wheel house and instruments station.
Saturday and Sunday were public visitation days during the Blackbeard festival.

Monday we sailed back to Norfolk by way of 8hrs of crew training in the southern Chesapeake Bay. After many tacks, jibes, sail adjustments, man overboard drills, abandon ship drills, etc... we finally returned to home berth in Norfolk. I now know why Popeye has such huge arms. A cruise on a traditional sailing vessel with no winches onboard will develop some big biceps and triceps. Next weekend its Harborfest at Norfolk. No long sailing days for that festival though.

Meanwhile, my latest and last project for Tides Inn is finished - an external WiFi antenna to improve our laptop wifi range. We are set to sail to NYC next week for the June 14th weekend where we will meet up with Greg and Beth who will be in Brooklyn at a craft fair for the weekend.
Our first chance to try out the HF radio and daily position reports. Stay tuned to the blog to see how it works out.