Onward Down The Chesapeake Bay!

SHIP'S LOG:

The first part of the day wasn't particularly pleasing. The promised 15-20 knots showed up but they came more from the NNW than from the North West. As a result, the wind was basically directly behind and throw in the 2-3 foot waves, with an occasional 3-4 footer, along with those occasional gusts of 25, and you can understand that the morning wasn't particularly pleasant. I am not sure if any boat handles seas directly astern particularly well, but ABISHAG doesn't particularly like it. Holding a course was a real pain. I could settle in for a while but the slightest drifting in attention and suddenly a wave would catch you and you were 2o or 30 or 40 degrees off course thanks to getting slapped with a wave on the rump. I would have top go through a whole bunch of yawing back and forth to get back on course and await the next lull in attention. Pitching and rolling and yawing, ABISHAG and I did it all this morning. I motor-sailed, mostly with just the main up. With out a pole for the Genny. the rolling and pitching would cause the Genny to collapse and occasionally snap open with a bang. Not good for the sail or my nerves.

The afternoon was a different story. Not that the wind change but the course did. Dead down wind became a reach as I head off toward Little Bay and Anti-poison Creek for the night. The motor off and with a partially furled main and slightly furled Genny, we screamed across the Bay toward the western shore. It was a fun ride but the chop kicked up by the wind was severe. I would really like to come back some day and sail the bay when it isn't such a mess. ABISHAG seems to handle this type of wind and seas rather well on this point of sail. She has a very comfortable motion.

When I was anchoring the boat for the night, I manage to drop my anchor weights over board as I was trying to attach them to the anchor rode. To say that I was a bit perturbed is to damn with faint praise. I do have an old anchor which I use as a lunch hook for the dinghy and so I used that in place of the anchor weights. It is less weight but it should work fine. I'll just let out extra rode if warranted. Heck, most people don't even used anchor weight but I use them all the time and feel "naked" without them. That makes two(2) book hooks and and two anchor weights lost over the side on this trip. Hope I have enough stuff to last til I get back. ( I had a very stiff drink after all was done to settle my nerves. Unfortunately, that was also the last of the rum!)

MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

I think what really irritates me about loosing the weights, and the boat hooks, is that it was totally unnecessary. I violated my own procedures and took a short cut and that cost me. I have been very carefully about following the procedures I have set up, but the times I have not I have learned a lesson. I also find that if I lay a course into the chartplotter, checking it as I do so, that I should always follow it when I am navigating. Things don't always look the same on the water as they do on the chart. True, they both eventually harmonize, but when you don't know a place, when you can't quite jive what you seed with what you think you should see, you've got to trust the work you have done before hand. Already, I have encountered missing buoys and marks and marks and buoys that aren't on the charts. Again coming into Little Bay I encountered two fish weirs not on the map and not marked in any way. It pays to be overly cautious or you will eventually pay.