We both awoke before first light with great enthusiasm for the day ahead, which seemed almost immediately dashed when I turned on the VHF weather channel to listen to NOAA. They were calling for a small craft advisory that morning through 10:00. We discussed waiting before we took off. We generally would not take Ashiya out of her slip in a small craft advisory. In the end, though, the desire to get underway overcame our general inclination toward prudence.

We untied our lines and motored away from the dock as if we truly knew what we were doing. Of course, this generally happens when nobody else is watching. As we motored out of the creek and down the river, the winds steadily picked up. Approaching the mouth of the river, we set our main to the second reef point (this makes the mainsail smaller for windier conditions - see photo above). We put up the reefed main and unfurled the genoa only partially. We were sailing on the Chesapeake Bay!

Our boat has many instruments which are new to us, one of which is the anemometer, or as Sheryl likes to call it, the 'windicator.' The panel of this instrument gives us an arrow which shows the direction of the apparent wind and its speed. With our current heading, we were experiencing 13 knots of apparent wind on a broad reach. The boat was moving along at 6.5 to 7 knots, which was not too shabby, considering that we had up such a small amount of sail area. Perhaps a small craft advisory isn't so scary after all.

The boat is a dream to sail. The cockpit flooring is shaped like a large, fat "T", with a huge steering wheel placed in the intersection of that T. The top of the T leaves plenty of space for the helmsperson to move from side to side and even angles up at each end to make a more comfortable standing position when the boat is heeling. Sheryl uses these upward ramps to gain a better view over the dodger. Watching her sail the boat is like watching an excited golden retriever pace in the back seat of a car in order to see what is happening out of both windows.

Shortly, though, the wind began to slow and we shook out the reef in the mainsail and unfurled the genoa, full canvas (except for the staysail). We continued south on this beautiful day, hugging the western coast of the Chesapeake. We had not planned to remain so close to the western side, however, we fell into a mistake which can only happen to modern navigators who rely too much on GPS. We had a typo in one of our GPS coordinates. Allow me to explain how we could let this happen...

Planning for this first leg of the trip had occurred at home earlier in the week. We did not have charts for the Chesapeake, but we knew they were on board (note: the last time we saw the boat before last night, she was not yet officially ours, so we could not take the charts home). Garrett, a friend from our marina, had kindly loaned us his chart to use for planning purposes. While we sat in the living room of our apartment selecting GPS coordinates for our first day of the trip, I was reluctant to write on his chart (as I would normally do on my own). Somewhere between measurement and typing coordinates into our handheld GPS, some number got transposed.

With no harm done to anything but our pride, we took this slightly more scenic route and enjoyed the experience of sailing our new boat. After 7 hours of sailing, we were merely ghosting along and decided it was time to turn the engine back on. We motored the rest of the way to Solomons Island, where we turned up Mill Creek and found an open spot where we could drop our anchor for the first time.

Sheryl and I talked through the process and it was obvious that we had some apprehension about maneuvering the big boat around others and making certain that we set the hook well. We circled the area we wanted to anchor twice and really got a feel for how well the boat turns and how much it would 'shoot' after we dropped to neutral. Finally, on the third loop, Sheryl was ready, I was ready, and we dropped our 33-lb bruce anchor over the bow roller into about 12 feet of water. I lowered past the 25-feet of chain and another 25-feet of rode. I asked Sheryl to keep it at idle and put it in reverse. We set the anchor, then let out enough rode to make a total of about a hundred feet (comfortably over the recommended 7:1 ratio of rode to the depth from the bow). We tested the anchor by putting it into reverse again and giving it a little juice. The GPS read a velocity of zero, and the rode was like a solid steel cable (no evidence of even the slightest vibration). We turned off the engine and looked around at this beautiful anchorage. The last remaining wind was dying and the water became glass. Not too much at present to test our anchoring prowess.

We went below and checked the engine oil, which was fine. However, while there, we discovered that the pan below the engine was full of water. I assumed that this was from the spraying stuffing box which had been noted during the survey/sea trial (this pan below the engine collects anything from the drive train forward and catches it before it goes into the bilge). I had not noticed it when I check the oil that morning, because the pan had a large bilge pad and it had been floating on top of the water. I sponged out the pan, into the bilge and put a clean, new bilge pad in the pan. We should not have that problem again tomorrow, because we had someone tighten the stuffing box before we left Annapolis.

After a long day, we settled down to make dinner. Sheryl took charge of the galley, while I sat at the navigation station, writing waypoints on our chart of the Chesapeake and double checking the entry of coordinates into the GPS for our next day. Soon the cabin of the boat filled with the aroma of fresh garlic and I lit the oil lamps to provide some soft lighting to accompany our pasta dinner. It was the best meal ever!

After I cleaned up the dishes, we sat down to discuss our route for the next day, an occasion we have dubbed 'Chart Talk.' We selected several anchorages in the area around Deltaville, re-checked our waypoints, and considered our headings relative to the winds being predicted by NOAA.

With the residual warmth of the engine and heat generated by cooking in the galley the cabin was quite comfortable. Content in the satisfaction of having successfully accomplished Day 1 of our trip, we climbed under some large blankets in the v-berth and dropped into a well-deserved slumber.


Day 1 Statistics:

Start: Crab Creek, Wolfgang's Pier, Annapolis, MD (38�57.519' N, 76�31.815'W)
End: Mill Creek, Solomons Island, MD (38�19.805' N, 76�27.031'W)

Nautical Miles Traveled: 47.7
Hours En Route: 11.0