July 10, 2016
NM Today: 56
NM To Date: 5763
Today's forecast for the Chesapeake included a "Small Craft Advisory". Of course, this had to be the forecast for a day with our longest crossing time for the bay thus far. Being on a well-protected creek, the wind was not an issue at the marina. The first thing I noticed when I stepped off the boat this morning, however, was the lack of humidity. No matter what the temperature read on the thermometer, it felt way cooler than the past two days because the air had little to no moisture!
We knew we had a long trip ahead of us with strong predicted winds and anticipated heavy wave action. Bearing this in mind we tried to get away from the docks early and managed to throw off our lines before 9:00 (but just barely).
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| Leaving the Wharf in Onancock, VA |
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| One last picture of the docks at Onancock, VA |
Onancock Creek leading out to the Chesapeake provided calm and cool waters, so cool in fact, it almost felt chilly compared to yesterday's weather. The calm part of the trip dissolved in a hurry when we hit the open waters of the Chesapeake. I knew with the small craft advisory that today would not be a day when I could catch up on Facebook on my phone, do crossword puzzles, or read a novel. I needed both hands holding onto railings and both feet firmly planted to keep my seat.
After I got hit in the face by my third splash of the day, I tried to figure how high the waves came on the boat. The Bimini top on the fly bridge is approximately 16 feet off the surface of the water. Sitting up there I am about four feet below the top of the Bimini. Given those numbers my guess is that the waves crashing over the front of the boat managed to go at least 12 feet high to get me wet. I found it slightly annoying to have to keep cleaning the salt water off my sunglasses.
I watched Clark as he piloted the boat that bucked like a furious bronco across the waves one after another. He had the biggest grin on his face. I said, "You're enjoying yourself aren't you?" He just continued to smile and said, "Yep!" In this we are actually quite well matched because I would much rather buck the waves with wind in my face than travel at slow speed on dead-still waters.
After two hours of holding on to keep our seats, we got a bit of a break as we passed through Tangier Island. Clark must have had no hands on the wheel because he loaded both the camera and his cell phone with pictures as we passed by. He must have had one in each hand to get all the pictures he got. Here is just a small sample.
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| Entering Tangier |
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| Tangier, VA |
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| Passing the docks in Tangier, VA |
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| Fishing Boats and Traps at Tangier Island, VA |
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| Lindy's Seafood (the birds are ready) |
If I had only known or thought about it, I could have gotten us some food during our little weather break. Unfortunately the thought never crossed my mind. Not until some 30 minutes later did I realize it would soon be lunch time, and there was no way on earth I was going down below. Fortunately for me I had some peanut butter crackers in my "hobbies" bag. Sadly, Clark would rather starve than eat peanut butter crackers. Ergo I got a snack; he did not.
After two more hours of riding our bucking bronco, Clark pointed out that we would soon pass by the entrance to the Potomac River. He explained that with no land as a buffer as we passed by the river, the waves would be rougher due to the "fetch". Terrific!
I asked him how long he thought it would take to get to the other side of the river and he said probably an hour. "But I have to pee now", I whined. He said he would find me a time to run down below and would try to hold the boat steady. With a "death grip" on the railings, I made my way to the head. Having managed to get downstairs, I decided to stay there for a while.
As I sat bouncing around on the couch eating a bagel as my lunch, I watched as one-by-one, and sometimes two or more at a time, the books and magazines on the port side of the boat jumped off the counter to the floor below. We have non-skid material on the counter, but sometimes it is just not enough to hold them in place. When gravity applies enough force, they dive right off the counter with great ease.
We have two 5x7 catch-all plastic trays on the port-side counter. One of us had stashed paper receipts under one of them thus eliminating the non-skid surface. I heard a crash as that one took a tumble and scattered its contents hither and yon. A small flashlight in the bin landed on the top of a cooler, and I watched it roll bit-by-bit to the very edge of the cooler and then stay there tempting me to try to make my way over to rescue it from falling the final distance. I just knew that as soon as I stood up to go over there it would make the final leap, so I waited it out. Eventually we hit one hard wave that sent it quite literally "over the edge".
At some point Clark must have started to worry about what happened to me since I did not return up top (sure took him long enough). He called down on the intercom to ask if everything was okay, and I replied that all was fine, but I had decided to sit it out down below for a while. Eventually, as we neared the far side of the entrance to the Potomac River, the waves started to settle down again to where I thought I could return to the fly bridge.
Before heading up I decided to clean up the mess on the floor. I considered my options for doing this and decided my best strategy would be to get down on the floor by the couch and crawl over to the mess. Once there I straightened the stack of magazines and left them sitting on the floor in front of the fridge. (I had no idea if they would stay there but figured I would at least make the stack neater.) I collected up the miscellaneous "junk" from the junk bin, removed the papers, and sat the bin back on the non-skid surface.
By this time it was well after 2:00, and poor Clark still had not had any food to eat since a long-forgotten breakfast cereal. I saw no way to make a decent sandwich. I considered bringing him cheese and crackers, but I knew that I would have to feed it to him one cracker at a time. I have tried this in the past and it becomes quite comical trying to find his mouth with the cracker. Today, however, I was not in the mood to play this game. I put some cheese between two slices of bread, called it a cheese sandwich, and put it in my carrier bag to bring up top with me.
Halfway up the steps to the fly bridge I called out to Clark, "Coming up!" as I normally do so he knows that I am in a precarious position. When I reached the top, he said, "You're about two minutes too late!" It seems that one of the panels on the full enclosure decided to unhook itself and start flapping madly. Since I sat down below oblivious to the happenings up top, Clark left the helm, rolled the canvas back up and snapped it into place. We do not have autopilot, so that means that the boat was on its own to navigate while he rolled up the errant canvas.
Earlier when I had taken the helm for a portion of the trip, I noticed that the floats for the numerous crab traps in the bay appeared and disappeared in the waves. I had to keep a careful watch and correct my steering regularly to avoid getting entangled with one of them. Fortunately for him, when Clark took over from me, he decided to head for deeper waters to avoid the traps altogether.
At some point along our cruise today Clark noticed that the VHF radio he recently worked on, and thought he fixed, started misbehaving once again. In between waves he fooled around with it and found that some upward pressure on the volume control made it work. After that he hung our camera from the VHF radio in such a way that it put upwards pressure on the knob to make a temporary fix. He may just have to buy a new radio!
Our course line for the day positioned us such that we bucked the waves, the wind, and the current for the majority of our trip. Normally on this Great Loop trip we have traveled about 8 knots (9 mph). Today at the same RPM, we managed to make way at just around 6 knots (7 mph). Two knots of speed over 56 nautical miles makes a noticeable difference on arrival time. Instead of taking the estimated six hours to reach our destination, it took us over eight hours to arrive in Solomons, Maryland.
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| Patuxent River, Maryland |
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| Coming into Solomons, MD |
Dave had been out sailing and came over to greet us and drive us to their home as soon as he heard from Betsy that we were ready to go. When we got to their house, Betsy had a wonderful hot, cheesy crab dip appetizer ready for us to dive right in. With Clark's measly lunch he (and I) were more than ready to start eating. Dinner was great, the company wonderful. We spent time reminiscing about our trip and comparing memories of our time spent together on the Great Loop.
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