Month: August 2015

One of the joys of owning a sailboat is being able to go to quiet anchorages, drop the anchor and feel like you are alone in the world.

Just to ensure all systems for anchoring and a night at anchor were operating as expected and convince ourselves that we knew what we were doing, we decided our first anchoring experience would be relatively close to home.

On a quiet day with no wind (…again!), we motored out of the harbor, into the bay, and “around the corner”.  We navigated through another channel (where we don’t mention we had grounded our charter boat 5.5 years ago – but learned that lesson well), and up Swan Creek to a small anchorage.

Although if you looked in one direction you could see the marina from which we chartered in 2009, by turning our focus in the other direction we felt like we were miles away from civilization.

The water was calm, with no current and no wind, and all systems worked perfectly, as we anchored and lived on the hook for the night as if we were pros and had been doing it for years.  Although no wind, it was a comfortable temperature and we had a lovely evening watching the sunset and enjoying the gentle swaying of the boat.

We considered staying out for another night, but hadn’t brought enough beer for Bob for two nights –  Another lesson learned.

The next morning lifting the anchor was again done smoothly and we motored back to our marina counting the experience as a success on many levels.

Leaving Annapolis on Wednesday, 5 August, with Christina at the helm, the sails were raised for the first time and we sailed!  

There wasn’t much wind that day, averaging 5 – 6 knots with an occasional gust, but it was great to be able to turn off the engine and let the wind take us – albeit slowly.

 

Bob had fun continually  trimming the sails attempting to eek out just another fraction of a knot of speed.

 

 

The past month has been full of taking care of things.  The boat needed to be hauled out of the water to get some work done, so we took the opportunity to drive down to Virginia Beach and visit with Bob’s brother and tend to some family business.  And thus no blog entries for a while – but all is good.

We are back on track this month, and last Sunday, 2 August, we headed over to Annapolis for a few nights.  We did end up motoring the entire way as there was absolutely no wind…again.  (The story of our lives sometimes — when we cycle there seems to always be wind – in our faces, when we sail there is usually no wind…oh well.)

But after 3 hours of pleasant motoring across the bay we arrived in Annapolis harbor and successfully picked up a mooring ball to spend the next 3 nights.

We enjoyed a relaxing time exploring Annapolis, eating good food at different restaurants, and enjoying feeling the boat move under our feet as we bobbed around on the ball.  (Yeap those sea legs definitely need to be developed still.)