In which we hang around the Chesapeake, visiting a couple of boat shows and prepare to cross to our winter cruising grounds.
We started October at the top of the Chesapeake Bay, having
come from Atlantic Highlands all the way down the coast of New Jersey, up the
Delaware and through the C&D Canal.
We were both tired and looking forward to taking it easy for a few
days. On Tuesday, 1st, we
just took advantage of the afternoon ebb tide to motor the 8 miles to Howell
Point, at the mouth of the Sassafras River.
With a light southerly wind, we had another peaceful night, only
punctuated by occasional gunfire from an army range across the river. This varied from automatic rifle to heavy
artillery. The wind was still blowing up
the bay on Wednesday, but forecast to veer later. We left at 08:55 and started to beat down the
bay, with a slight heading current so progress was slow. The fairly narrow passage between the shallow
banks was narrowed further by the danger area around the military zone, which
was definitely active with small patrol boats positioned every few miles, so we
had plenty of practice tacking. By
13:30, we had made about 20 miles when the wind did suddenly veer and we were
able to head south on a reach to the Annapolis bridge and round to Whitehall
Bay. This is a delightful anchorage,
well protected from everything except the south and, once again, we had it to
ourselves so we could have a recharge of our social batteries before proceeding
to the maelstrom of Annapolis. On
Thursday, we motored the last 6 miles up the Severn River to Weems Creek. Here we found a few OCC boats, including Five
& Dime, one of our companions from the Summer cruises. Dinghy ashore for a little light shopping and
again for ‘happy hour’ at an Irish pub in the centre of the town to catch up
with friends.
The Power boat show was on and we decided to have a day
looking at the ‘dark side’ on Friday.
The only ones that we were genuinely interested in were the ‘trawlers’,
moderate sized cruising boats which we could conceivably move on to if we found
sailing getting to be too strenuous but still wanted to be on the water. We could still cruise to the Caribbean in the
winter, up and down the east coast in the summer and possibly complete ‘The
Great Loop’ by going up the St Lawrence to the Great Lakes, through canals to
the Mississippi to the Gulf, round Florida and back up. Unfortunately, there were very few of these
present, the overwhelming number of craft being small boats for fishing or
family day trips, with a number of very high-end fast cruisers. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable day out.
That evening, we welcomed a guest on board. Suzanne, who was our first house sit host, 2
years before, joined us for the weekend.
On Saturday, with a moderate easterly wind, we sailed 35 miles down the
Chesapeake to Madison Bay, on the Little Choptank River. It was a near beam reach most of the way with
just a few miles of beating up the river at the end. A huge area to anchor in, which was just as
well as, when we came to lower the anchor, no result apart from a low voltage
warning. Fiddling with connections gave
no joy, so we dropped the anchor by hand.
The following morning, experimentation gave no progress, so we had to
haul up by hand, running a rope back to a cockpit winch to do so. A couple of practices, to slicken up our
dropping technique, and we got underway back to Annapolis. Although the forecast was for S’ly F3, we
left a reef in the main until we got out into the bay and it was as well that
we did. The wind went from 8, to 12, to
18 knots by the time we were heading north and, by mid-day it was over 20. We started on a broad reach, and put in a
second reef, but then went to goose winged with a full, then reefed genoa. We still managed 8 knots, with the occasional
10 as we surfed down the building waves, which had over 120 miles of fetch from
the Bay Bridge. Suzanne is an
experienced sailor and seemed to enjoy it.
Back to a broad reach to enter the Severn river, accompanied by many
Navy sailing boats heading home from their day out. The wind dropped as we got into the lee of
Annapolis and was down to 8 knots by the time we returned to Weems Creek. This made positioning easier as we dropped
the anchor almost where we had before. A
very late lunch, then dropped Suzanne back ashore before collapsing, exhausted,
for the night.
Monday was spent working on the windlass. We managed to borrow a length of signal sized
cable from Curt, on Five & Dime, and tried to work logically through the
system, eliminating possible causes. The
prime suspect, the hand controller, was first to cleared, Then the windlass motor
and gearbox. By bypassing sections of cable at a time, we were able to
demonstrate that it was the logic system, between the busbar and the solenoid
relay that was the problem. To
permanently bypass this, I needed to buy suitable wire and was just setting out
to do this, involving dinghying ashore and walking 4 miles, when a local passed
in his skiff and offered to give us a lift if we ever needed one. I quickly accepted his offer and got the
required parts. An hour of running wire
and fitting a new fuse and the moment of truth – could we use the
windlass? Yes. Hurrah!
I noticed, however, that the starter battery was low. A quick check showed that it was not
charging. Was the logic for the windlass
‘no charge – no use’ and was this the reason that we had had the failure? As it was late in the day, I left further
investigation until the next day. On
Tuesday morning I found a very sad looking terminal on our auxiliary alternator. Was this the source? Disconnecting it
produced a flash, so it obviously wasn’t completely dead. On re-connection I
now found that now neither battery bank was charging and gave up in
despair. Elsie’s focus was on getting a
new cooker, to replace ours which has been getting very worn and inefficient,
so we dinghied ashore and were about to summon an Uber when another boat’s crew
arrived and summoned one for themselves.
We were going the same way, so shared.
At the boat show, Westmarine were handing out bags with stickers
basically saying ‘if you can fit it in here, we’ll give you 20% discount. We believed that they could supply our chosen
cooker so Elsie asked the manager if he could fit one in the bag for us. Amazingly, he said that he could. A significant saving. A little wander around Dollar General, to get
a few give-aways for the Winter and the hardware store for a new terminal for
the Alternator, then a four mile walk ‘home’.
Another day of playing with wires on Wednesday only resulted in more
confusion but the evening was the annual OCC dinner. Having met so many wonderful people in the
last 2 years since we last attended, we had a great evening catching up with
old friends. We also met a few new ones,
including Suzanne Chapple, who organised a long and very successful cruise in
company around the western Caribbean the previous year. We would very much like to go along if she
ever does it again, so were pleased to ‘make our mark’ with her. The keynote speaker was Pete Goss, a serial
adventurer who recounted the story of his round-the-world solo race of 20+ years
before, including such episodes of sailing 160 miles into a hurricane to rescue
a fellow competitor and doing a major operation on his own arm in mid
Atlantic. All told in a very modest and
self-deprecating fashion. The best of
British.
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| High speed cat |
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| When weight is so important that you have a carbon fibre loo |
Thursday was the first day of the sail boat show. It was the preview day, costing twice as much
for entry as other days but we deemed it worth the extra as it is quieter. It
seemed that everyone else had the same idea as it was heaving. We split the day up into sections, looking at
a couple of boats then going around vendors’ stalls. There were people we wanted to see: the cooker manufacturer, to check vital
dimensions and see if they could beat Westmarine’s offer (no); Gill clothing as
Elsie has an issue with her nearly-new jacket; Balcan Electrics to see if there
troubleshooting guide would be of assistance with our alternator problems (no,
but he put us onto a workshop that might help).
On the boat side, we were pleased to note that Dufour seemed
to be dragging themselves up from the poor finish we saw a couple of years
before; Beneteau and Juneau, not so much.
We visited Pete Goss’ new cruising boat and had a nice chat with his
wife, Tracy. A trip out to the
alternator workshop resulted in a long walk home but we gained confidence that
they could help. On Friday, I was kindly
given a lift back there, with one of the alternators, before we went back to
the show for a second day. We had no
great plans for this so just popped onto any boat which didn’t have long
queues. Looked at a couple of brands we
hadn’t seen before, Tartan and Catalina, as well as Hanse and Bavaria. Also visited a couple of ‘out there’ boats: a
Pogo 40, which we had seen an example of in Spain a few years before. It is a stripped down almost racer, with
minimal crew comforts. The previous one
had been owned by a middle-aged couple, which seemed a little odd to us; this
one was crewed bit a fit young couple which seemed far more appropriate. We finished on Eagle, a 53 ft carbon, foiling,
wing-masted catamaran, rigged out as a party boat. In the evening, there was a pot-luck supper
at a property adjacent to the creek, where a few of our friends were staying.
On Saturday, I was given a lift to pick up the
alternator. Disappointment as still no
charging, possibly due to the other one also having failed, but we could not
remove this until after we had moved round to a dock where we would get our new
cooker on Monday, so we just tidied up for the weekend and hoped. On Sunday,
our friends from Washington, Starla and Fred, picked us up from the boat ramp
and took us to Baltimore for the day. We
had a pleasant walk along the waterfront to an area where there was a beer
festival happening. We lunched on mussels and beer, followed by a cookie and ice
cream combo from a store which delivers cookies until 3 AM, for those with
insomnia.
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| New cooker |
Monday, we motored round to the South River and a dock owned
by the OCC Port Officer, Westbrook Murphey.
This was to collect our new cooker, which duly arrived and we took our
old one to the dump.
Unfortunately, the
new one had been adapted to US fittings and would not connect to our French
pipework.
Visits to 2 stores and several
phone calls had not solved the problem at the end of the day.
Also disappointing were the alternators.
I removed both, together with the ‘smart’
controller from the auxiliary one, for testing.
The controller seemed to have failed so needs replacing.
As we were without a cooker, we walked to a
Vietnamese restaurant for dinner.
I
enjoyed my meal but Elsie’s was far too salty.
Tuesday was spent working on the two technical problems, with little
progress apart from finding a plumber who was prepared to work on the cooker.
We spent the evening at out hosts’ house,
with a great meal prepared in honour of Mike and Karen Bury who, hopefully, had
that day sold their boat, Chapter Two. On Wednesday, I figured out the wiring
on our new regulator and, at least, got one alternator working.
We then had a little game of ‘musical boats’
to allow ‘Believe’ to come into our dock, with us mooring alongside them.
The plumber returned and connected up the
stove, at extortionate cost as he had had to search widely for parts.
Thursday brought no more progress on the
other alternator but Elsie managed to get the laundry done.
By Friday, I had totally run out of ideas and
appealed to friends in the Cruising Association and Ocean Cruising Club for
help.
This bore fruit on Saturday as
Peter Whatley from the OCC took the problem in hand from the other side of the
Atlantic and convinced me to take the alternator to bits.
New brushes, fitted by the helpful technician,
were jamming.
A bit of filing down and a
lot of cleaning and success! We finally had two working alternators again.
We intended to start moving again on Sunday
but we awoke to constant rain and decided to remain put and just do a bit of
tidying up.
Monday was brighter and we left the dock at 09:00 to motor
across the South River to Harness Creek.
Ashore for shopping at the hardware store (electrical fittings) Westmarine
(bit for outboard) and supermarket. Away
again at 12:40 and motored / sailed across the bay to St Michaels, anchoring at
17:45. Before sunset, I fitted my new
part for the outboard. It was a ‘Doel Fin’ hydrofoil which provides lift and
helps to get the dinghy on the plane. I
had to modify it a bit to fit our motor but, on trying the next morning, it
seemed to work.
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| Alternator brush |
We had come over, mainly, to visit Tod and Anne, friends
from the summer cruises but also to visit the Chesapeake Bay museum. So, on
Tuesday, ashore to look round that. Interesting for the history of fishing,
especially shellfish and also boat building in the area. We followed this with a very pleasant pub
lunch with Tod and Anne, then back on board for supper.
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| Frames for replica ship at CB museum |
Away early on Wednesday for a good downwind sail to Cuckold
Creek, a very picturesque anchorage near Solomons. On previous occasions, we have had this to
ourselves, but had to share this time.
Another early start on Thursday and down to Ingram Bay, near
Reedville. Another quiet spot. Friday started flat calm, so we delayed until
mid-day before sailing down to Little Bay.
Here, we were delighted to find more friends, Nicky and Reg on Blue
Velvet and George and Frances on Twin Cove.
We were invited on to the latter for sun-downer drinks and snacks.
Saturday was again a slightly delayed start for wind, then a great beam reach
down to the York River and run up to Sarah Creek, pleased to find our usual
spot unoccupied. The marina here, York
River Yacht Haven, is remarkably accommodating and, for a $10 fee, we had full
use of their facilities on Sunday: Laundry; showers and even use of their
courtesy car for a little shopping.
While waiting on laundry we joined Harltey and Lesley on board Atsa for
a cup of tea.
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| Twin Cove |
The afternoon was spent on Engine play. Our domestic hot water, which is heated by
the engine, had been running cooler and cooler and now was rarely getting above
tepid. I decided to try removing the
pipes at the engine end and blowing through.
Pressures were much higher than expected; We had to put up to 25 PSI to
get things moving, then a gout of orangey brown mud arrived in the waiting bucket. We repeated several times until the water ran
clear with only one instance of a blow-back, which resulted in a spray of mud
over the engine and aft cabin. Up anchor
on Monday, first for fuel and water then a sail down the river and towards
Norfolk. We anchored for the night in
Willoughby Bay: a large, shallow, well protected area at the entrance to
Norfolk. The only downside is the Navy
base with constant helicopter activity and we found ourselves under the circuit
with aircraft passing 200 ft overhead every few minutes. There was a pause at sunset, then night
circuit practice which somewhat disturbed our evening cocktails but they did
finish at 10 to give us a quiet night. We
were delighted to discover that we had hot water for showers!
On Tuesday, we motored the final 9 miles to
park ourselves on the private dock at the condo of Greta and Gary, OCC port
officers. There is a block of 29 apartments, each of which has the use of a
dock, but only about 3 are permanently occupied so G&G have negotiated
visiting facilities for cruising yachts.
This is a great way for us to get close to the city and also meet with
other visiting OCC members. On Wednesday, 2 more arrived: Kialani, a
circumnavigating American family and Blue Velvet. We spent the evening, with the others, in
G&G’s apartment for a great eating, drinking and chatting session. Thursday morning was spent planning our next
move: probably down the coast to Beaufort, NC, as the weather didn’t look good
for going to Bermuda, followed by another blow through of the engine cooling
system and top-up of the coolant. We
then did a little shopping and visited the Chrysler Museum of art after lunch.
Monthly stats:
Over ground 350
Log 363
