A walk down an English lane during our visit in September

After returning from the UK to our boat in mid October we had only a short period of time to prepare for our next adventure which was to sail with the Caribbean 1500 rally to the British Virgin Islands. After scrambling to fix all those last minute items on the boat and provisioning her for her next voyage, we left Annapolis mid morning on the 26th October and headed on an overnight trip down the Chesapeake Bay for Hampton, VA. It was a good sail down the bay with light-to-medium winds and we were able to make good time with a great spinnaker reach until the wind died passing Solomon's Island. We then motored for a while until the wind filled in again later that afternoon. The wind steadily increased that evening up to 25 knots, remaining at that strength through to the following morning. We turned into the James River at sunrise, and after dropping the sails we motored up to Hampton, where we took a slip at the Blue Water Marina which was to be our home for the next few days until the start of the Caribbean 1500 rally. Over the following days leading up to the start of the Rally, we were able to meet the other participants who varied enormously from people doing the trip for the first time (like us) to others that had done it many times. One guy had participated in every year since it started back in 1989! Although most of the boats were from the US, there were several foreign boats from the UK, Germany and. Japan. We got to know the two boats moored on each side of us fairly well. Steve and Kim with their two boys from Florida had just purchased their boat in Virginia a few weeks earlier and are planning to sail around the world while home schooling their boys as they go. On the other side was a boat from Japan. They are planning to sail their boat back to Japan over the next couple of years. After passing our safety inspection and listening to all the weather and safety briefings, we finally felt that we were ready to go.