Departure Day! Oct 17 (Finally a good cell signal!)

 

Departure morning, October 17!

Dave was fixing our vacuum for the house at the planned departure time, so I brought a car-load of bags to the gate. There were family and friends, Jean, Bruce, Leslie and Nina! We put the stuff on a cart to the dock and made a chain to hand each bag up and in. We loaded the dock hose and wooden dock steps into the car and I took the car back to the house where Dave, Mr. T and I carrying the cat carrier, walked to the boat, just a couple of blocks.

At the dock, we chatted about how we are “really doing this”, gave a round of hugs, disconnected the power cord, attached the navigation iPad in the cockpit and turned everything on (for us that’s AIS, VHF, AP, Radar and Sailing Instruments). We did several group photos trying to get all 7 of us in.

We started ‘er up, discussed the tide direction and dockline release order, with help got all the lines aboard and outbound we went. 11:30 am on an outgoing tide to help us “speed” down the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.

Thanks to Bruce and Nina for running to the end of town to take more photos!

We had a little wind for at least the staysail, which if we left up in the canal would not block our view. As long as it was full, it would help us, so we carried it most of the way. 

I love bridges so took photos of a bunch. Here is the only one that could be too low, the railroad bridge if down would be too low. We just listen for a warning on the VHF.

I was just about add photos to the blog when…we had to head into some wakes from barges and powerboats which Thunder did not like. We expected him to get seasick. Though he had eaten that morning and just a few minutes earlier, he may not have had much in his stomach because he started over-salivating (foaming at the mouth). We figured it was stress and when I got into internet range again, we looked it up and that is one of the reasons for it. Its’ 4 pm now and the poor little thing is resting in his “loaf of bread” position on a cushion, after hiding in the cowling cubby for a while. (since I wiped his chin a few times and he didn’t like that, so he hid in the perfect place, the cockpit combing) I could see him in there chillin’ out. By the time I let him be, I checked the internet signal and it was not enough to blog from there to where we anchored.

He later came out and was feeling better, looking around and being close. We had plenty of last bags of stuff to put away and get ready for dinner. The blog must wait before we go crazy from too many bags.

3 flags/burgees, top to bottom: National Women Sailing Association, BoatUS, Northern Virginia Sail and Power Squadron

We had a pretty sunset for dinner on the cockpit on a quiet Wharton Creek bay.

We were not protected from weather, but there was not forecast to be much wind. Not enough cell relay to do the blog.

Wednesday 10/18 am up at 6:30 departed at 7am, pretty sunrise.

Decided to try for all the way to the Choptank to visit friends. Thunder was happy looking around and proceeded to take a nap for 3 hours or so. Arrived around 4:15. Hooked to our friend’s mooring ball for the night- so nice to be able to do that.

Upon arrival ...peace....

...we discovered that my Verizon service phone has 5 bars!  I was so excited to put more photos and paragraphs on the blog, but….Dave’s hotspot phone, which uses T-Mobile has no bars!  I have to hook up to his phone to be able to get internet to do the blog!  So no blog tonight. I’ll ask if I can bring the laptop to use their wifi at their house on Thurs....( So thanks to them this is here)  Our thanks for these wonderful photos from our friend Geoff!