The Chesapeake after the mother of all storms! Beautiful, eh?


We left Point Lookout Marina and started towards Gromit's final home (until he is sold); Holiday Point Marina. We had a plan of where to anchor for the night, but found that we were making such good time, we decided to head to 'plan B' anchorage. Holiday Point marina was too far to get to in one day.

It was getting later in the day, the winds were decreasing, our sails were down and we were motoring at around 5-6 knots. A curious cloud formation was heading our way. The sky was was cut into two sections: blue where we were and grey approaching with a clearly defined smooth line at its leading edge. It did not look menacing like many of the squalls we have been through, yet we knew that something was on its way. We could not have guessed what was in store.

In mere minutes, the temperature dropped, the wind strengthened, the waves started building and the rain began. Thunder and lightening were exploding all around us and then we were in 55 knots of wind - that's just over 100 km/h! In our whole seven years of sailing, we had never experienced anything like this.

Michael was at the helm trying to keep Gromit's nose into the wind but that was nearly impossible! I was scutching around on deck keeping myself as low as possible making sure no lines were loose and possibly being blown over board. The last thing we needed was for a line to wrap itself around the prop. Waves were breaking over the bow and the noise was deafening.

After about 15 minutes, the wind began to subside, but the thunder and lightening continued for at least another hour. It was all around us but mostly above us. And loud, so loud!!! I've never ever been so close to lightening so bright nor thunder so thundering!! What a finale!

The clouds began to clear and the setting sun peeked out with an eerie yellowness. We anchored only about 20 miles from the where we were planing to leave Gromit and sat and talked about this unbelievable event, this mother of all squalls, so close to our final destination and less that 24 hours from finishing our epic journey. I don't know about the others, but I was thinking holy sh*t, what was that about!!!