Saturday, June 9, 2018

Baltimore

On Thursday, we did not cast off the docks at Zahniser's in Solomon's until nearly noon.  With winds hovering around five knots, we weren't able to sail, even though they were from the east, so we set our course for Baltimore and motored along.  Finally, at 5 p.m., Peter could stand it no longer, and with eight knot of winds from the southeast, we set the main and the jib wing and wing (one sail on each side of the boat) and shut off the engine.  Amazingly, we were able to sail at five knots with only eight knots of wind (after we remembered to take out the reef!).

At 7 p.m., by the time we were approaching the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (which always evokes anticipation for the annual Rodgers beach vacation in mid-summer, since crossing the bridge means we are almost there), the winds had increased a bit, and we were making six knots as we passed under the two spans.  

Mantra approached the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
Peter at the helm under the bridge
There are many shoals in the Chesapeake, marked by quaint, weathered, blocky structures.  Contrasted with modern bridges and passed by sleek yachts and metal cargo ships which dwarf them, they are anachronisms which date back to the days of wooden ships.   

Shoal marker
We knew we weren't going to make it up the Patuxent River to  Baltimore before sunset, so Peter chose the night's anchorage in the Magothy River.  The rivers flowing into the Chesapeake offer bucolic settings for peaceful anchorages.  The river banks are lined with large, lovely homes nestled in the trees.  (Only the wealthy can afford waterfront property.)

The idea is always to anchor before sunset, but this wasn't the first time we have anchored after the sun sank beyond the horizon.  Luckily, we have good charts.  The chart system on the computer packed up a few days ago, but we have a large chartbook of the Chesapeake, and Peter was able to download charts on his phone for reference also.  I love the paper charts, but I have gotten used to zooming in and out on the computer to see details or the large picture, so having to turn to a new page for every couple of degrees of latitude and longitude was a different, forgotten experience.

Sunset over the Magothy River
It took us three hours yesterday to make it to the mouth of the Patuxent and upriver to the port of Baltimore.  We passed enormous cargo ships in the channel and factories and industries on the shore.  Dotted among these are historic sites, including Fort McHenry, where the words to the national anthem were written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812.

Fort McHenry
We have tied off in a slip at the Anchorage Marina, where Mantra will stay until late August.  I spent the day doing laundry and cleaning down below decks while Peter focused on securing everything on deck and making last minute fixes.  Most important is the sump pump, which should operate automatically, switching on when there is water to be pumped, but does not.  Operating it manually while we are onboard solves the issue, but we need to leave a dehumidifier running in our absence, and the extracted water from the air needs to get out of the boat via a fully functional sump pump.  Peter made three trips to the nearby hardware store yesterday, but he still needs parts, but he had to wait until 8 a.m. for the shops to open.

Baltimore at night from the Anchorage Marina
We are flying back to Sacramento this afternoon--back to the land of low humidity!  We are looking forward to spending time with our kids, who we left to fend for themselves for the last few weeks.  The blog will be continued in late August, when we will set sail again, this time for New England.


Thursday, June 7, 2018

The Chesapeake: Moving With (or Against) the Wind, Tide and Currents

We are making our way north up the Chesapeake Bay, sometimes swiftly and sometimes painfully slow.  Setting off from the Bluewater Yacht Center's marina in Hampton at 9:30 a.m. two mornings ago (Tuesday), we encountered light winds from the northeast, which was unfortunate since we are heading north.  We had to use the engine for a few hours until the wind picked up to 10-15 knots and shifted to the west.  Driving through the water with a boat is not nearly as pleasing as sailing.  Using the engine, we plow through the water with brute force, not in sync with the winds and waves, man against nature.  When we are able to sail, as we were in the afternoon that day, we are one with the elements.  Using the wind for propulsion, we slice through the water.  We settle into the environment of the water rather than push our way through it.  It is very peaceful (with winds under 25 knots, that is).

As sunset approached, we saw rain coming in and we headed past Smith Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake and up the Little Wicomico River.  I remember reading the signs along the road on the way to the beach every summer and delighting in this as well as other names derived from the local Indian languages.  We always assumed in was pronounced Wee-co-mee-co, a fun sounding word.  It wasn't until we started sailing on the Chesapeake in the previous decade and began listening to the marine weather forecasts that we learned it is Wi-com-ee-co.  It's a mellifluous pronunciation but the child in me still prefers Wee-co-mee-co.

We are a large vessel for a small river, towering over the little pleasure and fishing boats on docks along the verdant shoreline.  The river is dotted with bobbing re-used gallon plastic bottles marking crab pots, as is much of the bay itself outside the main shipping channels.  Unlike the open ocean, when long hours pass without seeing anything other the surface of the water and keeping watch can become tedious, the Chesapeake Bay requires vigilance because of the crabbing.  Sometimes maneuvering around them is like skiing down a slalom course.

The posts with red triangles and green squares marking the edges of the channel in the river serve a dual purpose.  They are also perfect sites for ospreys to build their nests, which they use year after year, adding more material each season.  Eggs are laid from mid-April through May, and incubation lasts about 40 days, so the nests we observed contained eggs which were being guarded from predators by one the monogamous parents.

Osprey guarding its nest
We dropped the anchor is a quiet place among the crab pots and settled in for the evening.  The rain began pattering on the deck as we ate dinner down below.  The air temperature is perfect right now for sleeping, not too hot, and everything was dry inside!

We woke up to a peaceful morning.  Two small skiffs, each with two local men, were moving from crab pot to crab pot in the calm water, collecting the crabs that had been trapped in the night.  We had had trouble lowering the mainsail the previous evening, so before breakfast, Peter had to lubricate all the cars on the track on the mast before we could depart.

Peter lubricating the mainsail track
After breakfast, we pulled up anchor and slipped away down the river.  Hauling up the anchor takes a bit more time here on the Chesapeake than it does in the Caribbean or the Bahamas because Peter has to hose off the sticky muck practically link by link as the chain clears the surface.

Crabbing on the Little Wicomico
Once again, the light wind was directly from the north, so we had to motor for a while.  The previous day, we moved 62 nautical miles.  Yesterday, the current as well as the wind was against us, and we only gained about five miles of northward progress in four hours.  The wind finally shifted a bit to the east and went to 14 knots around 5 p.m., and we were able to sail at a rate of seven knots for about an hour and half before heading in to the mouth of the Patuxent River to dock at Zahniser's Yacht Center at Solomon's Island, Maryland.  Solomon's is a popular yachting destination on the Chesapeake.  Other than the fact that it is well protected from winds from all directions, the only reason I can see for its popularity is that there are a lot of other yachts (as well as yachting services)!  The streets of town are pleasant and we walked a few blocks through a residential area with houses each surrounded by large lawns and gardens to a small restaurant, CD Cafe, where we enjoyed great food and a quiet atmosphere.

We see a lot more sunsets living on the boat than we do in our house because we spend so much more time outside.  We only stay below to plan navigation, sleep or make meals for the most part.  It's a great refuge from the rain, but otherwise most of our time is passed on deck, making us wonder why it is so important to have a well-appointed and comfortable interior.

Sunset at Solomon's Island
This morning's job for Peter (There is something every day!) is getting new battens of the right length for the main sail.  We are not pleased with the way the sail sets with the current arrangement of battens.  He is stowing them right now, and then we will cast off the dock and head toward Baltimore. Today the wind is from the southeast, which is great, but it is less than five knots, so it's not going to be very helpful.  Unlike the Caribbean, where the trade winds are fairly constant, the wind is fickle here, and there are currents and tides to add to the mix.

We fly back to Sacramento in two days, so, one way or the other, we will make it to Baltimore soon.




Monday, June 4, 2018

Greetings from Hampton, Virginia!

After we left the dock in Marsh Harbour, we crossed the Sea of Abaco to Man-O-War Cay to anchor for lunch and get the spinnaker ready for sailing downwind in light winds.  It was our last view of the shallow pristine waters of the Bahamas before embarking on the vast deep water of the North Atlantic, where the water ranges in shades of dark blue in the sunshine (and turns sinister gray under dark clouds).  I will miss the gorgeous hues of the subtropical sea and the pure white sand of the beaches.

Man-O-War Cay
Rainbow as a storm moved past us, with calm seas
Sunrise between the boom and the bimini on the third day out
Our trip from Marsh Harbour to the Chesapeake Bay took five days on the open ocean, once again a few too many days for me.  Actually, it did not seem quite as tedious as the trip from Puerto Rico.  I broke out my coloring pencils and coloring book and amused myself while we sailed for hours and hours, or I practiced my knots, in addition to reading.  (I finished three books and started another.)

I could probably get used to the tedium, and Peter is very generous about staying up most of the night so I do not have to do more than a few hours of watch after dark.  But I get bored even on short night watches because I can't read or color or play anagrams by myself in the dark.  (Our daughter Katya has suggested downloading books from the library, which is a great idea because I could listen in the dark.)  But, still, I am diurnal, and I would rather sleep through the night.

The other major and perhaps more annoying problem with sailing through the night is that everything on deck, particularly the cushions and the pillows and sheets get damp.  (We like to sleep in the pilot house when we are underway.)  After sunset, the temperature drops ever so slightly and water invisibly leaks from the air as water droplets condense and deposit themselves on every piece of fabric topsides, even our clothing.  It is just not comfortable to sit or lie down above deck.  (Do they make foul weather shorts?)  At least this is true for me; Peter does not seem to be bothered.

Mantra is registered in the UK, so we fly a British flag.  But after we left the Bahamas, we hoisted the flag which reveals our true nature:  the large pirate flag Katya and Matthew gave Peter for his birthday in March.  It looks stunning against the blues and reds of the spinnaker!

Peter on the foredeck after hoisting our pirate flag
En route in the Gulf Stream along the east coast, we hove to (stopped the boat in the ocean by facing the wind and holding our position with a backed foresail) to swim in the sparkling blue water, as we had done ten years ago when we made a four day passage from Cape Canaveral to the Chesapeake on our former boat, Epicurus.  We thought we should make this a tradition.  In the Gulf Stream, the water is a more luminous blue and deeper in value than the surrounding waters.  (I don't know why the color is different, and I don't feel like researching it right now.)  While holding a line attached to the boat, we jumped in--one at a time, of course.  Two to three knots of current is very strong, so we kept a tight grip with both hands on the line.  Peter went first, stayed in the warm briefly and hauled himself up the swim ladder.  I followed suit, but when I got back to the swim ladder, I was able to grab it but the current kept sweeping my feet away from the bottom rung.  I was dangling there totally unable to climb the ladder!  Thinking quickly, Peter started the engine and eased her into reverse to counter the current, and I was able to make it up (without getting my limbs caught in the prop!).  That was a little bit more exciting than we had thought it would be.  Refreshed, we fell off from the wind and sailed again toward the northern horizon, surrounded by the sea.

Until Sunday afternoon, the weather was pleasant and we had following winds.  Sometimes the wind was light, but we had fairly good luck using the spinnaker.  We probably should have stopped when the weather turned stormy (as we knew it would--we had listened to the forecast), but we kept on (I must admit, against Peter's better instincts).  Once we passed Cape Lookout along the middle of the North Carolina coast, we were committed because the inlets of the barrier islands north of there are not navigable for a boat with our keel depth, nor are the protected sounds because they are too shallow.

As the entire sports fishing fleet that was out to sea from Cape Hattaras appeared on the eastern horizon and came roaring past us towards safe harbor as lightning sizzled and thunder reverberated in the charged atmosphere, we blithely sailed on with our spinnaker flying.  We actually skirted around the first thunderstorms and sailed through a drenching rain without any problems. (The boat and sails needed to be cleaned anyway.)

The thunderstorms were not the issue.  The problem did not start until the wind clocked to the northwest and then the north, so we were battling through oncoming waves with winds beating against our bow.  Ka-boom!  Ka-boom!  The bow rose high over waves and then smacked down again on the other side of the crests.  We tried tacking (zigzagging across the intended course) as the night settled in to avoid going head on into the wind, but even this was ineffective.  Peter wisely chose to power up as close to the shore as possible to get in the limited lee of the low-lying land.  Actual sailing was impossible, so we used the iron genoa (otherwise known as the engine), which we are loath to do.  In addition, the north wind was biting cold, and we were forced to don long pants, jackets and even shoes after the luxury of being barefoot and clad only in swimwear for days!  I pulled out the comforters.  Neither of us slept much, but it was Peter who actually took most of the punishment on the deck.  It seemed to take forever to reach the mouth of the Chesapeake.  In hindsight, we should have hove to at sea yesterday evening and slept through the night.  After 12 hours, the low pressure front passed, and the sun broke free of the overcast clouds a couple of hours after dawn.  The wind didn't abate much, but the sunshine made it all seem more bearable.

The whole Hampton Roads area is rife with military bases.  Norfolk, Virginia, has the largest U.S. naval fleet in the nation.  As we entered the Chesapeake, we heard on the radio that Warship 77 was departing from the dock en route to sea.  All vessels, as usual, were advised to give it a wide berth.  We stayed just south of the main shipping channel, and, after we had passed over the tunnel section of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, we saw it approaching.   I took photos as it got closer, which made Peter nervous, but, hey, I'm a tax-paying citizen, so it's my navy too.  As it was off our starboard forward quarter, one of the Coast Guard cutters (with guns mounted on the bows) escorting the aircraft carrier swerved away from its side and steered straight for us.  Over the radio, we were advised that we had to keep a distance of 500 yards (which we had done).  When Peter did not immediately and decisively alter course, they hailed us again, so Peter turned slightly to port.  He was sure that they had seen me taking photos and we were in trouble.  But I guess they decided we were not a threat to national security, and they left us alone. Luckily, our pirate flag was shielded by the mainsail, so they never learned our true identity!

US Navy Warship 77 leaving Norfolk
The day here in Hampton was gorgeous.  We walked about half a mile to get groceries (We had plenty of Diet Coke this time, but we ran out of tea bags for Peter.  I'm sure a British wife would have never let this happen!)  On the way, we passed some historic sites.  We learned that from this place, two British Royal navy ships under the command of Lt. Robert Maynard sailed out on November 17, 1718, with the intention of ridding the area of the notorious pirate Blackbeard, who was blockading the Virginia capes and plundering dozens of ships.  Four days later, Blackbeard and his cohorts were found at Ocracoke Inlet on the North Carolina coast, and the navy engaged them in battle.  The pirates boarded Maynard's sloop, and Maynard and Blackbeard fought hand-to-hand with pistols and sabers.  After a reported 20 sword lacerations and five musketball wounds, Blackbeard perished.  On returning to Hampton, Maynard had the pirate's severed head mounted on a tall pole at the entrance to the river as a warning to others not to interfere with British shipping at what was then the busiest, most important port in the colonies.

We also saw a charming red-brick house not far from the waterfront that is the oldest brick dwelling in what is America's oldest continuously occupied English-speaking city--Hampton, that is.  The Georgian style, two-story structure, called Ivy House, was built by sea captain John Herbert in 1757 as his plantation home.  It survived two fires and retains four of its original windows.

Ivy House by the Hampton River
Tomorrow morning we start sailing up the Chesapeake Bay for Baltimore, where Mantra will spend the summer.