Friday, October 17: Leaving St. Mike’s
| Start: St. Michael’s, MD (dock) | Miles: 46.3 nm |
| End: Solomons, MD (anchor) | Time: 7hr23min |
| Weather: Cool and windy, then calm | Waves: 0-1 ft |
We said our farewells to my parents and sister at another cute restaurant in St. Michael’s. We can see why this is a standard stop for Chesapeake Bay cruisers. We need to head south before the southerly wind picks up. We’re keeping an eye on a potential weather window developing next week to round Cape Hatteras, since we don’t want to be stuck in Norfolk when it gets cold.
We left around 11 am and had a mix of sailing and motor-sailing, trying to beat the sunset into Solomons. Our first hour was into 20 kts of wind, which wasn’t very fun. We had a sliver of sail out for stability, and motored into it. After that, we turned to head south and had a very pleasant following wind pushing us south. We made decent time, and approached Solomons as light was fading. With how calm the night was forecasted to be, we decided to just anchor in the wide open bay.
Saturday, October 18:
| Start: Solomons, MD (anchor) | Miles: 83.3 nm |
| End: Sarah’s Creek, Yorktown, VA (anchor) | Time: 12hr26min |
| Weather: Warm and breezy | Waves: 0-1 ft |
If we want to beat the big southerly wind, we need to get in Saturday afternoon. Sunday looks terrible for sailing south. We left at 4:00 AM, well before first light and made great time. Our kids woke up well after half of the trip was done. Around midday we saw dolphins and biting flies – the best and worst of the southern Chesapeake. With favorable currents and wind, we averaged 6.8 knots, arriving around 4:30 pm at Sarah’s Creek. Our friends on The Good Part anchored next to us, and we were excited to hang out with them.
We spent four nights in Sarah Creek. The second night, a trawler came and anchored too close to us, and I asked for some more space. He anchored about 20’ further away, and that night a violent cold front blew in at 40+ knots. I slept through it, but Leanne came and woke me up at 2am telling me the trawler had drug closer to us, and was a boat-length from us. We watched the trawler for the next hour in driving rain until the wind had died down enough that we were confident he wouldn’t drag into us. I went back to sleep, but I’m pretty sure Leanne checked it every 30 minutes that night.
Over these few days, we tackled boat projects, like fixing the nav lights (the last 6 feet of wiring had rusted from saltwater exposure), re-sealing Rainier’s leaky roof hatch, and reinflating the dinghy.
