And Back to the Chesapeake – Day 30

Yesterday we anchored out again and had a pretty restful sleep.  The lapping of the water on the hull actually stopped for a while signaling that the wind had pretty much died down.  But then later in the early morning it started up again telling us the winds were again picking up.  The wind was primarily coming from the east, and since we were heading mostly north, that meant the wind was on the beam.  And, today we were crossing Albemarle Sound.  Yippee.  The last time I did this with Rick, we had stiff winds creating beam to rollers that had the boat rolling from side to side like and amusement ride.  And to top it off, Rick was trying to cook some breakfast, bacon, eggs and toast.  If you have been following along, you know the bacon was burnt, the eggs were like sawdust and the toast, well that was pretty much ok.  I’m not saying the overcooked food was because of the wind and rollers, but it did make standing up in the galley a little hard.

So we took some more spray over the bow, coated the windows with salt water, all in a day’s adventures I guess.  Oh, and along with all the rollers, spray and wind, we were dodging crab pots across the sound.  The pots were so close to the charted course, you almost ran over them.  These guys have all the water in the sound, and they have to put crab pots on the rhumb line through Albemarle Sound?  Come on!!!  It was a relatively short day; we were going to Coinjock to stage for the push to Norfolk tomorrow.  And yet again, the weather looks crappy for the next several days.  Rain, thunderstorms, and wind.  What else can we get here?  Maybe some hail thrown in? 

It is about a 65 mile trip to the anchorage we plan to stay in which should be pretty well protected.  We have several bridges to negotiate tomorrow along with a lock.  This will be Jan’s first lock, and it will probably be raining to boot.  I’m not sure how this will go but I will be sure to let you know when it’s all over.  Oh, and because of the high winds with thunderstorms, we took the bimini down again, so there is no shelter on the flybridge from the rain.  So, when I am negotiating the lock or anchoring I will be doing it from the flybridge, and Jan will be out on the foredeck.  It looks like a pretty wet day tomorrow.

Today’s travels took us 38.8 miles.  So far we have traveled a total of 1145.5 miles from Ft. Myers Beach Fl.  Today we were on the water for 5 hrs. 19 mins.

So boys and girls we will have to see how this all plays out.  Until then…..

P.S. Hi Tyler