Chesapeake run

There should be a handful of new photos and a new video up on their respective links.

11/7/06

Look ma, no hands!

Today was the day of the autopilot. We left West River at 7 this morning and headed out for a day of motoring on the Chesapeake, and we were able to rig up the old belt autopilot unit we have. This made watches a breeze. No more small adjustments every 30 seconds or so, just watching the horizon for boats. Around 1 pm a helicopter flew directly overhead that had a striking resemblance to Marine 1, and we are on the Chesapeake so location is in our favor. Then moments later a fighter jet (maybe f18) flew past. That provided a little excitement for us. We made good time with 8k of wind with us and up to 1k of current with us. 7.2k s.o.g. was not uncommon. 60 nautical miles was the total for the day leaving us anchored at the mouth of the Potomac River in a side creek. Oh, I forgot to mention that the darn old belt unit failed halfway through the day.

11/6/06

Leaving Annapolis

Today was a relaxing day. We woke up and after our usual breakfast of oatmeal and hot chocolate, returned to the playground that is Bacon Sails. We puttered around amongst the used goodies. We got some old sails for lee-clothes and a wind scoop (can’t wait for one to be necessary), some fender material for a fender board and numerous other small gadgets. We left the dock around 1 and motored for a mere 13 nautical miles to West River, a small inlet south of Annapolis. We dropped our anchor and the newly extended anchor chain in 10 feet of water next to another cruiser. We chose our location partly because we saw that another boat agreed with the quality of anchorage; little did we know he was just a broken down sail boat that would moments later be towed by Tow Boat US to a nearby harbor. Oh well tonight’s wind is only expected to be 5 knots from the SE.