Pulled out of the slip at 10:45 with the ful crew. Winds were light, swirly, but mostly out of the west 5-10 knots. Temperature was 76 under partly cloudy skies. Wanted to get some crew time in - letting the first mate take the helm for a while with me handling sails, and then reversing roles. Almost put up the gennaker, but wind wasn't all that reliable, so decided not to. A nice day of practice under light winds.
Century Club: Tom Dean
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
Well, very little wind on Saturday, so I had to settle for a paddle Board trip out Davis Creek and up Langford creek and around Cacaway Island and back. Lovely day - nice and warm - just no wind. Had to dodge the wake of many a powerboat - but didn't fall!
Friday, August 23, 2024 to Sunday, August 25, 2024
Number of days:
3 days
Sailed on over to the Magothy - up by the horse farm from Lankford Bay Marina for the weekend. We met up with some sailors we had met through the upper Chesapeake bay sailing Facebook group - Yvonne and Charlie. Had to motor most of the way over as we had west ward winds for the most part - but did get the Genoa up for a while. Had a couple great paddle on the SUP on Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning. Pulled anchor Sunday about noon and sailed the entire way back to Lankford Bay with nice SW and then S winds. Too many idiot powerboaters out though…. Got back to Lankford bay about 6. All in all a great weekend!
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
Got to 100 hours earlier than usual this year so spent the day changing the oil, putting in a new impeller (one fin broken - so smart to check) and changing fuel filters. Found out after starting the engine up that the oil filter wa missing. Gasket - luckily, caught it quick and not too much mess. One hour job took 3 all told with the cleanup. Went out for a paddle afterwards.
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
Another SCA - another good day to practice. This time the winds were more 10+ knots with gusts up to 20. We went out with a reefed headsail, but a full main. First mate took the helm again - and seemed much more relaxed after the previous days experience... much more understanding about how the boat was handling... a good instructional kind of day for us. I also played around with the Jib/Genoa cars - think I have a better idea about them now!.
Also saw the CG out repairing the Day Mark for Langford Creek!!
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
Tuesday August 20 there was a small craft advisory out - winds were out of the NW 10-15 with gusts well above 25 knots. We needed to get some full crew time in this type of weather, so we headed out with a reefed main and head sail. It was cool and gnarly out there - but we had a good time and the first mate got some needed "heavy weather" time at the helm. Going out of the slip was a bit rough, but coming in was good!
Friday, August 16, 2024 to Saturday, August 17, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
The first mate recently retired and evidently she had shared with a family that we had a sailboat in Rock Hall and invited them to come over if they were in town. Well, they were vacationing in Rock Hall and they contacted her - so we arranged a sail with them. Her former student - Derek brought his father and grandfather along and we had a marvelous time. We went out Davis Creek, down Langford Creek and out into the Chester befrore turning and heading back. Got the sails up, but were pretty much motor sailing as there was little wind. Her former student had a ball - spent most of the time at the bow of the boat - when he wasn't behind the wheel!
Sunday, August 11, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
Received the parts to fix the Autopilot - so did that in the morning and then of course we had to go out and test! Left the dock at 11 - sailed for a bit and then went over and anchored outside of Cacaway Island. The Autopilot worked great!
Saturday, August 10, 2024
Number of days:
1 day
Needed to get some fuel, and since there was little to no wind, it was a perfect day to do some crew practice getting in and out of the slip. Got a few kinks worked out and things are much smoother now - whichever way we decided to come into the slip!
Thursday, July 18, 2024 to Thursday, August 1, 2024
Number of days:
15 days
We decided that we needed to see what ocean sailing is like, so we decided to do the Del-Mar-Va loop. Knowing how bad the Delaware Bay and river can be, I decided to go counterclockwise knowing that it might take a few extra days in the Chesapeake since the prevailing winds this time of year are from the South. We did have a few days in the Chesapeake when we had good winds we could use, but we also were waiting for a favorable ocean forecast for the 24 hours that we would be out there with southerly wind that would keep up in the Delaware Bay and river. We left July 18 with our first stop being Tilghman Creek where we overnighted. Nice sail down with some light northerly winds. The next day we headed down to Solomons - again, light winds, which eventually died out altogether. Found a nice anchorage in Solomons as we got there before the crowd! The screwpile race was going on and we got to see a lot of the participants and the boat parade out and back in.
Started off on the morning of the 20th to head down to Dividing Creek, but after getting out past Cedar Point, we decided it was just too rough to be plowing and we returned to Solomon's for another overnight. We took the dinghy and went in to the Tiki Bar using the public landing... we also walked around a bit.
Left Solomons on the 21st and headed to Dividing creek where we had an beautiful anchorage all to ourselves. The next morning we headed out and down to Deltaville Yacht Center where we spent 3 days. I had noticed that Bubbles seemed a bit slow - not reaching her normal 5+ knots when motoring and sailing... so I had her hauled and the bottom cleaned. Big Difference. Also replaced the missing zinc!!
On Thursday we moved from the Yacht Center around to Jackson Creek preparing for our imminent departure out into the ocean. We stayed for two days and dinghied around visiting the museum and the Saturday farmers market. We were targeting Monday to be our ocean passage. We left Jackson Creek on Sunday the 28th and were planning to either stay at Cape Charles Marina (they wouldn't answer email, VHF or phone) or Kiptopeke Beach but we were making such good time we decided to head on out. Hit the Atlantic at 2:35 pm with all sails up. Lost the Autopilot about 1 am so we had to hand steer the rest of the way (taking 1 hour shifts at the first mate's insistence). Dropped anchor in Breakwater Harbour in the Delaware Bay at 5pm and got a good nights sleep.
Tuesday the 30th we had a fairly wild rice up the Delaware - started out OK, but things deteriorated quickly and it was terrible around the power plant up to the entrance to the canal. Since we were riding the incoming tide all the way, we were able to get all the way down to Chesapeake City where we dropped anchor at 8pm... a 12 hour sail.
Wednesday the 31st we had planned to get all the way back to the marina, but a nasty storm blew up down south of the Bay Bridge which stirred the water up to a vertical washing machine - so we ducked into swan creek for the evening and then finished up our loop on Thursday August 1st about 1pm. On the days we weren't moving, we were exploring the area in our dinghy, paddling around and just really enjoying life on the water. A great trip - we both learned a lot!