Passage Cape Charles Town Dock to Reedville Marina, Reedville, VA
8:26 AM Underway
2:50 PM Docked starboard side to face dock in front of the Crazy Crab Restaurant
7.6 engine hours 40 nautical miles

Left Cape Charles under a heavy dew. Took lots of rags just to get the windshield clear. Susan wiped the boat down off and on for hours after we left Cape Charles.
Last night we did have a great dinner at Kelly’s. I had Sheppard’s Pie and Susan had fish tacos. Both filling and some in a box to take back to the boat. We have not started splitting dinners. Instead we both order too much and have lunch or dinner the next day with the left overs.

So back to todays action filled cruise details. After cutting the entrance markers to the Cape Charles channel, (Thank you Ed Bush ) I rolled out onto our course 347°T to be for 5 hours. Thank you autopilot. So, I just turned the autopilot on and went back to bed.
No, not really. There is lots of activity in the Chesapeake Bay especially as you slowly cut across the Baltimore shipping channel. I’ve always worried about our boat loosing power in the shipping channel and getting run over by a ship that cannot maneuver around us. The two ships I had to make room for were going opposite directions. Now just looking at these ships with binoculars it’s hard to figure what they are going to do. In fact they seem so far away and appear to be slowly moving. Wrong on that . We go 6 knots. One of them was headed north and was going 15 knots. The southerly headed tanker was going 17 knots. That’s three times our speed. So, you have to stay out of the way.
Enter my favorite instrument for doing all the calculations. My AIS transponder! Whether I’m going to cross the ships bow, a very dangerous idea, or, am I going to pass behind the ship, much safer, is information needed quickly. And, just how close am I going to pass safely by. The Closest Point of Approach ( CPA ) is the distance we will miss each other. The time until the CPA occurs is also critical for adjusting course or speed. Simply by adjusting your speed or course you can avoid a collision, or pass each other with a safe distance. I like a 1 mile CPA for ships. So, how do you figure this all out? You can certainly turn around or stop and let the ships pass. Or, you can adjust your speed until you calculate an improving CPA. In the Navy I used paper and geometry to figure the CPA . Yea today, my AIS transponder does all these calculations for me and also transmits my data for the ships to see what we are doing. It is our responsibility to stay out of their way. My CPA for the northbound ship was going to be 475 feet in 17 minutes! Too close for comfort for me. The southbound tanker was going to hit us if we didn’t do something. I didn’t want to change course and did not have to. All I needed to do was to slow down from 6 knots to 4. The northbound freighter would miss us by 1,000 yards ( 1/2 NM ). Not bad since we were definitely going to cross behind him. But, what about the southbound tanker?? I knew he would be turning away from us when he got to the next channel marker and we still had not entered the shipping channel. But my eyes kept looking as his information on the AIS screen and then I saw his turn to starboard on the AIS and also the binoculars. He also missed us by about a half mile. After his CPA was past I picked up my speed back to 6 knots. Never changed the autopilot course.

A few hours later and in the open waters of the Chesapeake my CPA alarm went off for a sailboat that was on a collision course. He was about 40° off my starboard bow, 3 miles away and appeared to be under sail only. I have to yield to him as the rules of the road say. But all he had to do was turn about 2-5° to pass safely behind me. Some sailboaters just like to exercise their power and make power boaters yield to them. This is very upsetting when I am trolling with 6 lines out and have to do a bunch to miss a sailboat exercising his will on a powerboat. For the most part, sailboaters will yield to that situation if it doesn’t mess up their sail. Back to the sailboat on my AIS. He was holding a nice course and speed. So, I simply slowed down a bit to allow him to cross my bow safely.

Finally I close in on the entrance to Ingram Bay, for our Reedville destination. I do have to dodge a fish trap and a line of crab pots to enter Ingram Bay entrance and on up Cockrell Creek to the Crazy Crab Restaurant / Reedville Marina. Both are closed today! Tied up and called the owner’s home phone. He told me they would be open Friday! Will be walking into town to eat somewhere else tonight.
Tomorrow’s forecast is blowing a GALE in the afternoon. Will have to see if I will dare cross the 13 miles of the Potomac to head on up to Solomons. Don’t have to. Not on any schedule.

Today’s picture is a window view from my office this morning. Never worked my way up to a window cube at the phone company. HA!