Got to the marina a bit late - had some things to do in the morning first, but when we got there - nice and sunny, 65 degrees with a nice wind from the WNW I didn't think it warranted a small craft advisory - winds less than 10 knots - but later in the afternoon there was plenty of reason for the small craft advisory.. Pulled out of the slip a little after 1pm and headed off with the 1st mate at the helm. Got the sails up pretty quickly as the winds were very favorable for sailing right down Langford Creek. Had a real nice run - averaging about 5 knots - on a close reach all the way down to the buoys outside of Queenstown. At first had a reef in the front sail - just to make it comfortable, but the winds started to die off, so we let out the full Genoa, which helped with speed. Noticed a strong front - turned out to be a cold front - moving in to the area with some dark clouds, so we decided to head back, still under full sail. The front passed, got a bit chillier and nothing else - until, the winds picked up significantly! We were starting to see gust of about 20 knots and sustained right about 14. We reefed in the headsail - and I thought about going out on deck to reef the main, but instead we just depowered it and had a nice quick run all the way back to the marina - averaging over 5 knots once the winds hit! Got back in the slip about 6pm - so unfortunately, we missed the Upper Chesapeake Sailing meet up at Elk River Brewing ☹️.
A nice day out on the water - and the great thing was that we, as a crew, managed the weather nicely without the first mate getting paralyzed with fear - something that wouldn't have been possible a year ago!