Day 6: November 21, 2008

Port: Deltaville (37.56N/76.34W)

Weather: Today’s weather predicted another small craft advisory. It was forecasted 15-20 with gusts up to 25 mph toward the afternoon. The winds were more like 20-30 mph coming out of the north with gusts upwards of 38 mph. The humidity was 51% again today. Scattered clouds with occasional sunshine. The high temperature for today was 45 degree F with a low of 31 degrees F. Not sure what the wind chill was, but I can tell you it was colder than 45 today.

Haha, I just got to laugh as I sit down and write about this leg of the journey. Of course, I can laugh now as I sit down below, tied to dock, warm clothes, and a hot cup of coffee.

Knowing the weather wasn’t going to be great, we decided we needed to get out earlier than we had the day before. Up at 600 and out by 700, we were motoring away from the beautiful Solomon’s Island. We had a longer distance to go today from Solomon’s to Deltaville, a 52.79 nautical mile trip.

The Patuxent River was quiet this morning, leaving Mom wondering if anyone worked on Fridays around here. There were no barges and no zoomies flying about for most of the morning. It was cold! We were bundled in thermal underwear and foulies on top. We raised some sail and headed down the bay. We passed the length of the Patuxent River Naval Air Base and some of their targets stationed out in the water. A pretty straight shot south, we moved along at an average of 7 knots, hitting 8 knots when the gusts blew. Unlike yesterday, we took turns sitting below to get warm every so often.

Mostly today was a mix of emotions. One minute I was so cold and stiff, the next elated with joy at being on the water, then back to miserably cold. The winds increased to the point where it was impossible to keep the sails up. Ditching the sails was a slightly exciting experience, holding on for dear life, while trying to lower the flapping sails, with spray flying over the sides of the boat, drenching you in cold water. Once the sails were down, we moved a lot smoother through the water, but still crashed bow down and up like we were a fast paced rocking chair. It was so cool! And a little intense! We found Deltaville and were trying to quickly get in before the gusts completely wore us down. By now, all I wanted to do was sit, which was no longer an option since we were bucking around so much you couldn’t be still.

I hesitate to write this… but our dingy setup, which had broken before and was repaired, broke again. We had it secured with other lines though, so she wasn’t completely lost. We did however lose an oar and almost completely lost the dingy trying to further secure it. We then had the engine “overheat” which wasn’t really true since the temperature wasn’t too hot, it was just steaming. Water got into the engine room from all the splashing and we believe it just caused a little unhappiness on the part of the engine. We got into Deltaville and grabbed a T-dock at the Deltaville Yachting Center. It is tucked back enough that the heavy winds were much calmer. We had the most horrible docking but we are going to pretend it went really well. :)

Listening to the weather later, we discovered that we had been sailing in gale force winds and had gusts up to 38 mph. No wonder!!!

We skipped dinner tonight and are going straight to bed, planning to bunk down here tomorrow as the winds will still be insane out there.

Good weather and happy sailing!