Yesterday was a very long day on the water. It took nearly 11 hours to get from Sandy Point to Annapolis. The first part of the ride was rough. It's almost always a little rough when crossing the mouth of the Potomac River, but today was particularly so. The wind was whipping along at 20 knots out of the south and the water got sporty due to the imminent mixing of the water of the bay with the water of this rather large river. Couple this with a changing tide and it got sporty. I hate it when I don't follow my own advice, but this is a delivery trip and I have no time to dawdle. So, in spite of the small craft advisory in effect, off I went. Abreojos is not really a "small craft" and her breeding on the Pacific, her pilothouse, her lack of fancy sliding glass doors (I'm really being facitious here), not to mention her skipper who can be a grunt when he has to, and off we go. Yes it might be uncomfortable, but I know the difference between uncomfortable and dangerous.
It seemed like the tide was always on my side for this leg of the trip even though I know it wasn't. However, I set the throttle when I was leaving Sandy Point and I did not touch it again until I got to Annapolis. I was in 8's all day and from the perspective of forward progress, it sure seemed easy.
Once past the Potomac River, it got really nice. The water flattened out for the most part and the sun was shinning. It turned out to be a beautiful day on the water. Those boys and girls at the National Whatever Service got this one completely wrong. Certainly, I benefit when they get it wrong in the right direction. I hope, however, they don't get it wrong in the next few days. The weather is fixin' to get downright nasty and I don't want to be caught in a situation where I take off under the impression the weather is predicted to be really nice. So, I'll have to research the forecast myself and then back check against the National Whatever Service. I can't really blame them, however, the weather has been a complete mess all year and I'm suprised anyone is still willing to make a forecast given the likelihood that it will be askew.
As I said, the NWS placed in effect a Small Craft Advisory for the entire northern part of the Chesapeake Bay. A small craft advisory is a type of warning issued by the National Weather Service, most frequently in coastal areas, when winds have reached, or are expected to reach within 12 hours, a speed marginally less than gale force. The wind speed that triggers the advisory has changed over time. Until the late 1960s, the threshold was 32 to 38 miles per hour (or 28 to 33 knots). At some point, the lower limit was reduced to 23 miles per hour (20 knots). Today, however, most places have standardized on 25 to 38 miles per hour (22 to 33 knots), encompassing the combined ranges of forces 6 and 7 on the Beaufort Scale. I saw none of that. In fact, as I mentioned in a post on Facebook, the only "small craft advisory" that made any sense yesterday was, "don't hit one."
As I got closer and closer to Hammock Bay and Annapolis, there were hundreds of boats out on the water. AYC, that's Annapolis Yacht Club, was hosting a sailing/racing event for CRABS, which is an organization that benefits disabled folks by taking them sailing. There were at least 125 boats participating in this event all flying a wide variety of colorful chutes. But, they sure took up a lot of water and made seeing the marks pretty tough. However, having had the sailing experience I have had, I bothered to put myself in a position where I would least impact their wind and stay clear of the race course while entering the outer harbor of Annapolis.
So the end of the run was a little hectic. With all the boats on the water and no clear channel, there were boats moving in every direction at a variety of speeds, some with sails, some without, and it was a hard way to end an eleven hour trip. However, the bright side is that Brian was waiting for me at the dock and that certainly made things easy.
We are docked at Annapolis Yacht Club for the night and will be leaving first thing in the morning, destination, Delaware City on the Delaware River. It's too far to make Cape May in one day, and if the weather gets as stinky as it is forecast, then Delaware City will be a good place to hole up. However, I really want to make Cape May by Monday. I'd rather sit there waiting for weather than Delaware City.
In any event, Brian and I enjoyed a couple beers on the deck of AYC and then a nice dinner at a place called The Rock Fish. I had Snakehead Tacos. Brian availed himsel of the local specialty - crab cakes. After spending last summer with friends in Deltaville making crab cakes that impressed even the Maryland Crabcake Snobs, I have a hard time ordering crab cakes in a restaurant. I was telling Brian of how I would get the call around Thursday afternoon to go bait and drop the traps, and how Jason and I would go around on Saturday and empty the traps ending up with at least several dozen succulent Maryland Blue crabs for the grill-out on Saturday nights; how we would have way too much food because everybody assumed we would get no crab; and, how Floyd would spend all the time late at night picking the crabs we invariably did not eat, so that we would have the makings of crab cakes during the week. Too much fun.
Anyways, I'm closing this section for now and will write again probably from Delaware City. Here's the forecast for today over the waters we plan to cover:
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Bye for now.
We were talking last weekend about the Memorial Day crab feast. Such a great night with good friends and food. Wishing you a safe voyage and that the NWS is wrong in their forecast. May the water and the wind be in your favor.
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