We are officially on the Chesapeake Bay. Our next stop will be Deltaville, VA. For now we'll sit and wait for the weather to be more cooperative. The East River has been one of my favorite anchorages since we first met Karen & Jeff on M/V aCappella of ActiveCaptain fame here. We had a pretty interesting trip up. We stopped at Ocean Marine first for the big three (make that 4 diesel, water, pump-out and gasoline) then headed outbound for the bay. I began hearing announcements on channel 16 from US Navy Escort #1. Basically, stay out of the way! I radioed the officer on #1 to find out which side he wanted us to pass on. He decided on port to port, which seemed a little odd given that the Naval Shipyard was on our Starboard side, but we followed instructions. I guess the officer re-thought it, because they were headed straight for us. About a minute later he hailed us asking that we move for a Starboard pass. It turns out they were escorting a submarine! I wish I would have had the nerve to take a photo, because the crew of the sub was all on deck at attention. As we passed, each of the escort boats would move out to us making sure we stayed outside the channel. Well, that was exciting and to add to the excitement 5 container ships were coming into port right behind the sub. We let three go by us and then made a dash across the channel to pass the other two on Starboard so we could make our way North. Oh, did I mention that the bay was rolling in on our nose with two footers to go along with the 3 foot wakes from each of the container ships? Oh yeah, just real exciting. Not to be out done by the Navy, we were also passed by a Coast Guard cutter coming into Port. That was the first 10 miles of the trip, but after that nada- no one! Wind on the nose, yes, and cold rain but it felt like we were on the Chesapeake alone. Thank goodness, by 12:00 the winds did subside and the rolling smoothed out.
Along the way, we've met some really nice people. Fred on S/V Calypso hooked up with us in Southport, NC. Fred has a beautiful Hunter 41 Sedan Roof sloop. Sweet! Fred also puts on a wonderful happy hour. His appetizers were way over the top and he is doing this trip single handed! Our hope is to get back together with Fred and some his local sailing friends this Fall in the Chesapeake, since Fred's home port is on Solomons Island. Thank you so much Fred! We had a great time traveling with you!
We also met Susan, Forest and Mocha on S/V Rejoice a 44 Island Packet. They tied up in front of us at Portsmouth and once again we had a really lovely visit over appetizers and drinks. Their 10 month old puppy Mocha was a delight. She is a Golden-Doodle and a sweet puppy. We all got a lot of useful information from each other.
Today we began the process of organizing our stuff on the boat for our haul out in Deltaville. We did a little cleaning and from here on out that is what will do each day except for the day we travel on up to Stingray Point Boat Works.
Fair winds & Smooth sailing,
Elaine & Lawrence S/V Elle & I