We eagerly left Dennis Point and began Dream Catcher's journey home. We decided not to officially rename her until she came home to NH.
Her old name was removed from the transom. However, there were too many other items on the boat with her old name. We didn't want to anger the gods by missing something. So we decided to do the naming ceremonies in New Hampshire.

I took her off of the dock and showed off my new skills. The wind was on my bow and I had them remove the bow then the spring lines as we pivoted off of the stern line. DJ fendered us off and we spun around and slid off the dock. It was textbook (thank god). I guess I was feeling pretty confident and then we came out of the bay into the Chesapeake, Dave looked at me with a smirking grin and announced "let's sail". I guess he wanted me to show off some more of my newly acquired skills. My heart could have pounded right out of my chest. Would I remember what I had learned? This boat was rigged up so differently. All of this doubt washed away when I saw everyone's big smiles of encouragement. So up went the mainsail. All the way up. Wow, a 65 foot mast holds a lot of sail! OK...now my heart was beating more regularly. Just when I thought I had found my cadence, Dave announces, "let's let out the jib". It turns out it is a genoa. I learned the difference in sailing school. I checked the wind speed and agreed the conditions were right. 15mph. We sailed a broad reach. She was up to 8 knots. I was feeling incredibly empowered. After about an hour, we had to change our course to head North into the Chesapeake towards Annapolis. This caused us to beat into the wind (not fun). Some seaspray made its way over the bow and into the cockpit. The kids loved getting a little wet. It was fun for them for the first hour or so. Then they hid under a sleeping bag. All in all it was a great day. We were sailors today!