Day 2 - Rhode River to Solomons (44 nm, 12:08 hrs)
Left Rhode River at 7am with light NE winds.  Wind stayed NE till about 2pm when it went slack for the next three hours.  Just north of CNG plant, the wind went from NE at 6 to ESE at 15.  Close reached at 6+ knots to the mouth of the Patuxent river.  Thirty minutes later, well with the Patuxent, the wind died and we motored the next 3 miles to Solomons.  Around 6:30pm, motored into Back Creek.  Creek was too crowded so motored back out and up Mill Creek where there is lots more room. Went up to St. Johns (N38 20.291 W76 26.787).  There had been a nice anchorage off the Maratime Museum on Back Creek but only room for one boat and it was taken.

Mike wanted to know what a Schooner was - the forward mast is shorter than the aft mast.

Day 1 - Bowleys to Rhode River (33.4 NM)
Got down to the boat yesterday around 1pm.  Loaded boat, got ice etc.  Went into Baltimore and picked up Mike from the train station around 3pm.  Went to Fells Pt. and had dinner and a beer in Canton - then headed for the boat.
Left Bowleys Marina about 7:45am on 5/4.  Rained last night. Had medium to dense fog from Middle River to the Bay Bridge.  Races were being held off Annapolis.  Nasty storm clouds coming in from the West but were passing behind us so we lucked out.  Sailed through the racing fleet just as they were getting their courses set and preparing to race (waiting for wind direction to settle out).  Came into Rhoads River around 4pm.  Motored a total of around 5 hours.  Anchored at N38 52.589 W76 31.436.

Check out that huge storm cloud just beyond the Bay Bridge!

That's Thomas Point Light on the left side of the photo - in the distance.

Day 0 - Trip Summary

Overall, I accomplished what I set out to do - Sailed down the Bay, then down the ICW to Beaufort NC and out to Cape Lookout. The trip down to Beaufort was rough. No wind or too much wind - and on the nose. Cold and lots of rain.  The trip back was much better.  I ran aground once - just north of Hampton VA in what is charted as 18' of water. I ran hard in to one submerged log in one of the canals. I started on May 4th and returned on May 31st. 

My planning paid off.  I felt I had all the tools I needed and the boat performed well.  I only over packed by about 10% (stuff I later wished I hadn't taken).

The first week and a half saw bad weather - two days of light wind, then 2 to 3 days of heavy wind - mostly on the nose.  And 3 straight days of heavy downpours.  After that, it improved - warmer, more sun, less rain, and generally more favorable conditions for sailing.  Once I got to Beaufort, the season's first tropical storm developed of the coast of South Carolina.  This stopped all northbound (snowbird) boat traffic and made me pretty cautious.  I did make i t out to Cape Lookout but only for a day sail and a 4 hour anchorage. Then a week later, a second tropical storm developed off Florida (Daryl?) but was never much of a threat. 
The boat performed very well and I was very pleased with it.  The only "failure" was that the fuel transfer pump developed a leak after about a week.  I This lasted about 2 weeks. After about a week of containing the fuel in empty bottles, I began recycling it back into the tank. In Oriental NC, I ordered a new pump and installed it on my way back home. It was a simple age related leaking rubber diaphragm.

I ended up bringing about twice as much food as I needed.  Next time will need to plan for the number of each meal and plan on eating out some. I finished most of what was refrigerated so what wasn't eaten could be saved for use at home or another trip.  I felt like I ate pretty well - better than at home (not withstanding Joan's cooking and left overs).  I found that the days were long and by most days end, I was usually mentally (and sometimes physically) exhausted.  Too tired to read or relax much.  My routine was usually to be in bed around 9 to 10pm and up between 5 and 6am.  I averaged about 40 miles a day (ranged between 25 and 70).  This was a long trip for me and I often wondered how some sailors can go on much longer passages (to Florida, the Bahamas, etc.).  Having a companion would make it much easier, I think.
 
My health was good for the entire trip although my hands got a little sore and I think I wore all the calluses off my feet from going barefoot on the non-skid deck and standing for hours at the wheel.
 
I met a lot of very nice and interesting people along the way but everyone seemed to realize that these meetings were almost always short lived relationships.

Trip South

Trip North

Preface -----

I originally had planned my first extended trip to be to Elizabeth City NC. My original interest stemmed from a conversation I had with sailmaker Dudley Boycott of Sparrows Point, Baltimore. But I decided about a year ago (mid 2011) to make it Beaufort NC and Cape Lookout, just offshore. 

Beaufort is on the Coast but the town is protected by all kinds of little sand bars/shoals and Islands.  The old part of town runs parallel to a deep channel that is about a quarter mile wide. It has a board walk with docks along most of the mile that accomodates boats from the size of mine to ones MUCH larger.  There are also lots of moorings out in the channel.  The currents in the channel are pretty strong and change direction with each tidal cycle.

In the headings I give the travelled distance and time. The distance is in nautical miles sailed/motored.  If I was tacking into the wind or rounding land masses, it is longer than "as the crow flies".

For some of the days, I show a chart.  I downloaded these from my Garmin each night since they show my "track".  Besides showing my actual path (track), the Garmin calculates distance, time, actual speed every 30 seconds, average speed, etc.  This gives a "picture" of my days "sail".

Most of what I have posted are taken verbatum from the hand written logs that I wrote each evening.  I have added this preface, a trip Summary.  To the daily logs, I have added a few afterthoughts for clarity and interest.

After achoring each day, I had a checklist I used to make sure I didn't forget anything important. One was to turn on my phone GPS and send out an email to some of my friends and family with my coordinates. I did this through a Boat US phone app that sent a link.  All the person at the other end had to do was click on the link to open a map showing exactly where I had anchored for the night.

I wish now that I had done this blog on a daily basis.  I only had wifi 5 or 6 times during my trip but it would have been nice to have kept this up during my trip rather than doing it after I had finished.  Maybe next time.