The Last Big Passage
09 May 2014
A lighthouse near the Potomac River on Chesapeake Bay
As of today, we are happy to announce the completion of our trek from Nassau to the Chesapeake Bay! It took us 17 days total, many logged miles and engine hours, a few under full sail, and countless lost hours of sleep.
Our final passage was on Thursday from Cape Lookout, NC to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and up to Deltaville, VA. We left at the crack of dawn and it was a 36 hour trip and fairly uneventful until we reached the Bay. Upon entering the main shipping channel around noon Friday, the fog began to roll in, the temperature dipped to 60 degrees and the winds switched to the north. And of course....we had to go north! We were a bit concerned about the dense fog, so we motored to just outside the main channel. Before the fog rolled in, we counted 9 huge cargo ships at anchor at the mouth of the Bay and several underway both leaving and entering, as well as several US Navy vessels. We heard a fog horn....twice, thinking it was coming from the green buoy that we had just passed. But all of a sudden, Sara spotted some unusual waves, and then.... another blast of a fog horn and a huge, gray US Navy warship appeared out of the fog less than a 1/4 mile away. It was just like in a movie and way too close! They probably saw us on radar but we didn't see them. Nice cloaking device-ha-ha!
On Saturday in Deltaville, we checked out a couple of marinas to have Dream Chaser hauled out and put on the "hard" for summer hurricane storage. It is not an easy task to find a marina with a wide enough well and a big enough crane to haul out a 24.3 foot wide catamaran. The two marinas that are a possibility have a 25 foot wide well...we will need a shoe horn and some expert maneuvering to get in.
Before we get hauled we do have to sail to Annapolis, about 100 miles north to have a bit of small amount of warranty work done at the location where we started this journey. Then its time to clean, wash, stow and get things packed up to take home and head back down to Deltaville for haul out next week.
This concludes our blog for this season. We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our winter cruise.