Day 2    

Another beautiful start to the day.  The goal today was to head to an anchorage south of the Potomac River, on the Great Wicomico River called Sandy Point.  I estimated the trip to be about 46 miles.  I turned out to be about 53 miles.  We pulled up anchor and headed out right around 8:00 a.m.  It was smooth sailing out into the bay, but as the day wore on the wind began to pick up out of the northwest.  As we motored south, the tide began to turn to an incoming tide.  Now we had the wind at our backs pushing the waves from the rear but against the incoming tide.  What does that matter you ask?  Well the waves got bigger, and the bigger they are the more they pushed the stern of the boat around.  This made it very difficult to steer a straight line, plus we did a lot of surfing.  Up the wave down the wave. Our speed would change 2 to 3 knots each time we went surfing, slowing down as we crested the wave, then speeding up as we went down.  The waves started at around 3 ft., not too bad, but when we reached the Potomac River they went from 3 ft. to 4/5 ft.  Now I don’t usually get seasick, but I will admit I was a little queasy trying to eat my lunch.  In fact, I didn’t eat all that much for lunch.  Once we got past the Potomac River, it calmed back down to around 3 footers from the rear.  When we finally made our turn to head up the Great Wicomico River, the swells were now broadside rolling us from side to side.  At that point I couldn’t stand up to go anywhere for fear of falling.  You just could not stay upright.  Needless to say today’s adventure was a little rougher than I would have liked, but you take it as it comes.  Tonight we are in a quiet anchorage and the wind has died down and it is quite peaceful here.  I just walked outside and there was a huge gorgeous orange moon rising over the water, the remains of  the super moon reflecting on the water , putting on quite a show.  After taking a beating today, what a reward.

Tomorrow we head for an anchorage in Willoughby Bay just outside of Norfolk Virginia.  Today we traveled 53 miles, taking 6hrs 16mins.  So far we have traveled around 123 miles or so.

Until tomorrow.

A LNG tanker headed up the Bay.  We passed a LNG terminal, I guess he was headed there.

This picture does not even do it justice.  The big moon reflecting off the calm waters of the anchorage.