Day 246: Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Port to Port: Salt Pond to Prentice Creek
Underway: 6:22 am Motor Off: 3:15 pm Miles Traveled: 50.4/47 Stayed At: Anchor
First Things First: Saw our first first traps – decrepit looking structures consisting of a line of sticks (probably holding up a net) leading to a net pen which catches the fish. Not much skill in that I guess. They are usually unlit and unmarked on the chart so in bad conditions they could be a serious hazard to navigation; first time having problems with GPS device.
Mile 189 to Mile 142 (Chesapeake Waterway): After a short day yesterday, we started the first of several (we hope) long days to get north farther while our weather window holds. We had a little wake up call this morning when we left our anchorage and turned on the GPS and it didn’t pick up any satellites right away. In fact, it took 15 minutes before we knew where we were on the chart. We have become complacent and dependent on things working like we expect them to and when they don’t it can get a little dicey. In this case we just followed the channel markers out and I was able to use the GPS on my phone to get our location which I manually plotted on the Ipad. Not ideal, but way better than dead reckoning or guessing. The GPS finally synced up and we were good for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we will turn it on early and see if we can avoid this problem.
Slow Churn passed us again for probably the last time. They are trying to make miles too while the weather is good. Speaking of weather – it’s perfect – sunny, warm (finally) and we even had a nice breeze for half the trip today. Perfect for sailing. We aren’t the only ones traveling – it was another boat parade with lots of boats heading north after waiting for good weather. We were alone again by early afternoon – everyone travels 2+ miles per hour faster than us. Some of the power boats travel at 20 mph or better on plane (and use more fuel in an hour than we use in a day). But the Chesapeake was kind to us today. We are grateful.
Lucky we have a reliable windlass (Cindy), since it took 4 tries to get the anchor to catch in our nice little cove. There are a few houses on the shore but it is completely protected and quiet – just the way we like it. We timed it perfectly since, a little while after getting settled, it started raining and thundering a little. We had sandwiches for dinner, read for a little while and were sleeping by 9 pm. Another long day tomorrow.
Total Miles Traveled: 3,241 miles