Day 2, Year 10: Passage to Norfolk, Virginia, Day 2
Date: Sunday, October 12, 2014
Weather: Glorious, Sunny Day, Temp in the mid-60’s, Winds NNE 5
Latitude: 39 21.428 N
Longitude: 073 46.848 W
Miles Traveled: 200 Nautical Miles
Location: 30 Miles Due East of Atlantic City, New Jersey, Sailing SW
We got an email from our friend Lee Kaufman who has been out on an Intracoastal Waterway excursion the past few days with his wife Lynda in their boat Sea Turtle. The email just said that for various reasons, they were heading home a day or so early. Lee just said, “Plans change, don’t they?” Yep, they do. Yesterday we were headed to Cape May to duck into the Delaware Bay and on through to the Chesapeake to avoid winds from the south. But this afternoon we rerouted and our heading directly to Norfolk. According to the GRIB files the winds will not be strong, just 10-15 from the SE and that should be fine since our course takes us SW. And who knows, we could get into the night and decide differently, but at this point, I think we are going for it as the weather forecast for the Chesapeake in the coming days doesn’t look great. This change means we will arrive at the entrance to the Chesapeake early on Tuesday morning and head directly to Norfolk and down the Intracoastal. We would have loved to have taken a leisurely trip down the Chesapeake visiting with friends, but we need to get to South Carolina so Mark can get his next cancer treatment as soon as possible. We figure we should go as far as we can as fast as we can while the weather is settled. And the weather report for the Chesapeake this week doesn’t look great. Right now it is a little too settled as we are motoring with just 5 knots of wind, but we had a great night and morning of sailing. The night was busy at times with brightly lit casino boats and fishing boats and even a few sailboats. This morning I could see three sailboats, but they were all in front of us and moving faster. We talked to one of the boats on the VHF radio and they said they were headed to Norfolk. I have a feeling we’re going to have some company in the inland waterway with sailboats headed south for the winter. We are obviously not the only snowbirds out here.
Mark and I are getting our sea legs. We still roll a bit with the wind behind us, but it is much calmer than yesterday. Last night I fixed Shepard’s Pie for dinner. I took the Pyrex baking dish out of the oven and put it on the stove top to cool a bit. I thought it was calm enough that I could leave it there while I went to the bathroom, but I returned to find the glass baking dish in the floor of the galley. It had hit so hard that part of the pie was on the floor and all over the louvered door under the sink. But at least the baking dish didn’t break. We were able to save most of the pie that was thrown out, but what a mess to clean up. Yuck! A hard reminder that you never, ever leave anything sitting on the counter while underway. So that was the low point of yesterday. The high point was the wonderful moonlight that we had overnight. The overcast skies cleared after sunset and the moon guided us. It was beautiful.
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| 141012 Day 2 Passage to SC, USA–Day 2 of Passage |
