Day 184, Year 8: Windbird’s Trek to Cape Cod, Day 7
Date: Monday, May 6, 2013
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Winds ESE 8-15, Temp in the Low 70’s F
Latitude: 35 43.204 N
Longitude: 076 14.206 W
Location: Intracoastal Waterway, Docked at Atlantic Yacht Haven, Mile 12.5
Captain’s Log for Monday, May 6:
“Surprise–no rain today! Well, almost no rain. We did get a quick drizzle just before arriving at the Atlantic Yacht Haven where we filled the water tanks, topped off the diesel, did some shopping, and did the laundry. We are now ready for another week or two of travel.
Last night’s anchorage (suggested by Active Captain) turned out to be a great one. Active Captain has been very helpful a number of times on this trip. Maybe it will come up with a good anchorage for tomorrow night as our original plan to go to Reedville may be just too far for one day. Today we made 63.7 nautical miles, but I think Reedville is closer to 75 miles from here. We are in a rush to get to Rock Hall because I ordered some new Rolls AGM batteries and need to pick them up there by Friday. It will be an interesting week given the forecast for little or no wind. And it just started pouring rain!!! Such is the cruising life. Though I think if I were really cruising I would just sit still until the weather got better. Enough for tonight. I need to plan tomorrow’s trip.”
Back to Judy on Cape Cod–If the weather forecasts I am watching are correct, Mark, Lee, and Lynda would have to sit still for quite some time to get better weather. In any case, it looks like they are going to have rain, rain, and more rain. And now that the wind is finally coming from the south, there is not going to be enough wind to sail. It looks to me like Windbird will be motoring up the Chesapeake and maybe all the way home. What a bummer! Not to mention the cost of fuel. Mark was trying to get here by mid-May to start his job at West Marine. Otherwise, it does look like we should have waited until mid-May to start the trek north. But even then, the weather could be uncooperative. Weather is one of those things we just can’t control.
Things here are moving along just fine. Sam and Oliver are very slowly getting better and the rest of us are holding our own. Tomorrow all the boys will be school or day care if health permits and Heather has to go to work. That should leave me some time to get some spring cleaning chores done. But that is, IF health permits. Heather is thinking that Oliver might have to stay home, so we’ll just have to wait until morning to see how he is doing. And just now I went downstairs to put clothes from the washer in to the dryer and found that the washer has stopped spinning. Oh, no. Not sure what we’ll do about that, but it sounds like a new washing machine to me. There’s always something.
