Chesapeake Perfection

Last weekend (8/2 to 8/4) we sailed out to our favorite spot on the Wye River.  Again.  It's just the most serene place I know within a day's sail from our marina.

We didn't get going until 1430 because of prior commitments.  Once we got the sails up we were making over 7 knots the entire way though.  The wind was blowing out of the SSE, 15 knots, so we had it on our beam the entire way across the Chesapeake and up into Eastern Bay.  Made it all the way to the Miles River on a single tack too.  Sweet!  We sailed right up to the entrance to the Wye River before dropping the sails (uhm, furling the sails) and then motored the rest of the way to our destination, Ward's Cove.  Had the whole place to ourselves except for the occasional crabber.  And I won't mention the one that showed up at 0300.

We anchored further out from shore than we usually do in order to take advantage of the nice breeze.  The anchor was set and we settled in for the evening by 1830.  That's a four hour run from HHN, record time.

Saturday I spent way too much time trying to repair the broken handle on the forward head door.  It had gone limp on us during our trip to Bermuda and wouldn't stay latched.  I pulled the handles off and removed the latch mechanism.  I could see a broken spring inside but didn't want to go to the trouble of dismantling it any further.  Instead I swapped out the latch from the door to the forward stateroom.  This door stays open 99.999% of the time so I figured it could donate it's parts until we got a replacement.  The thing I didn't account for was that these two doors open in opposite directions  This meant that the latch had to be turned around as well as the lock mechanism.  Took me several tries before I got that one figured out.  In the end, my ten minute repair took over two hours but we now have a door to the head that'll stay shut.  That's important!

It was pretty grey out all day Saturday.  We rigged tarps over the sides of the Bimini in case it rained and spent most of the afternoon in the cockpit enjoying the breeze.  Sometimes it's nice just to kick back and waste a day away.  Cheri worked on her watercolor painting and I worked on a Bloody Mary.  Later in the afternoon we got in the tender and rowed around the cove.  We ventured  further out than we had before and found a nice inlet just up-river.  We explored that for a while and decided it was probably too shallow to bring the boat into.  Too bad.  This is a pretty nice spot, cut way back from the river, completely out of site.  I suspect the water's only about 3 or 4 feet deep though.  On the way back to the boat we fired up our cigars and drifted with the current for about an hour.  Sooooo laid back.

Back at the boat I still had half my cigar left so I crawled up in the bow seat.  Cheri surprised me with a Breakfast Martini (orange marmalade and vodka, mmmmmmmm).  I sat there for another 45 minutes and listened to the birds and watched the fish jumping out of the water all around us.  This is such a peaceful spot, very mellow.  It draws you into the serenity and practically forces you to relax.  "Sit there.  Shut up.  Breathe.  Enjoy".  I can take that kind of abuse.

For dinner Cheri made pizza (the best - cheese stuffed crust, hot sausage, mild spices) which we enjoyed while watching a movie.  After the cloudy day the evening air was cool with the sky crystal clear.  When the movie was over I went up on deck and stared at the stars for a while.  This is a great anchorage for that.  There are no homes along the shore, no intrusive lights, and the nearest town is St. Michaels which is miles away, just a distant glow.

Sunday morning we slept in late.  We had waffles, eggs and coffee for breakfast and then just laid around and enjoyed a clear, breezy morning.  We finally packed up and headed out around 1400.  Once out into the Miles River we found a nice breeze, 15 to 20 knots out of the NNW.  After making the turn into Eastern Bay we had a straight run all the way home at 7.5 to 8 knots.  Actually had to reduce the genoa by about 30% to keep the rail out of the water and make for a more comfortable ride home.  I think I've mentioned before that our boat runs best when heeled over 15 degrees or less so it really pays to reduce sail.  In this case it had little affect on our speed and we enjoyed an exhilarating run back to the marina.  Another four hour sail for the record books.

The little blurb about the night sky reminded me of something we saw on our sail to Bermuda.  Marine phosphorescence.  I think I saw it from a distance when I was in the Navy years ago but I remember it as a glow in the water.  What we saw from our boat was more like sparks from a campfire, only greenish/blue, and sometimes in bigger globs, like when chunks of burning paper rise up from the flames.  We could see it in breaking waves too and used it's glow to help steer on really dark nights so we'd meet the waves at a good angle even though we couldn't see the wave itself.  I tried to find a picture on the internet but couldn't find anything that even resembled what we saw.  Probably for the same reason we don't have any pictures of it....we were so fascinated by the phosphorescence we didn't even think about taking pictures.  It was so faint though it probably wouldn't have shown up in a photo.  Nice memory though.