When we left Annapolis, we endured about 4 days of cold wet and snotty (as sailors say) weather. We had condensation dripping off of all of our hatches and accumulating on the interior walls and our clothes. The kids stayed pretty much below decks as we had a few long days of ugly weather. At least the wind was from the right direction, and we managed to make a lot of miles on the days we were sailing.
Scott celebrated his birthday on our last long day of sailing into Norfolk, VA - our heaviest weather to date. We endured 30-35 knots of wind and large swells and waves for the entire day. We were very relieved to arrive at a dock to stop moving, and to get a warm meal.
We meant to get some of our systems on board updated and installed in Annapolis, but it was not meant to be, so we arranged for much work to be done in Norfolk. Among the items needing work: the Auto Pilot (named Bo-Bo after Scott's childhood imaginary friend), the Single Side Band Radio, and our refrigerator.
My Dad drove the hour and a half to come up to Norfolk the following day to collect the kids and myself so that Scott could get some work done on the boat in peace! In the meantime, I have spent most of my time here taking advantage of my parent's kitchen to pre-cook meals for our passage - I've made and frozen about 10 meals in 2 days! I've also been doing a little provisioning for our time away from our "normal" food items - not sure where we will stow all the items I have purchased!
Tomorrow we head back to the boat and see the progress that Scott has made during our absence, and see if he's created an empty locker to put all of our food items in! Noel arrives tomorrow evening and we will await a weather window for our departure in the next few days.
Our shore team (thanks, Cindy!) will be in contact with us daily, and will hopefully be able to update our position on the blog as we go. Otherwise, we'll have an update and photos from someplace warm next...