Solomon's Island, MD

Hey, anyone notice that it’s getting COLD?!?  We sure have.  

Finally broke down last night and ran the generator so we could turn on our heat.  We went from 55 degrees to a balmy 78 degrees in about 15 minutes.  Not sure why we chose to wait so long and freeze our asses off the past two nights.  While the heat was cranked up, I took a shower (which taking a shower on a boat is a whole other experience in itself).  When I went to turn on the shower pump to pump out the water, I noticed that it wasn’t draining.  So, here I am with a hair full of shampoo and water lapping at my ankles with no place to go.  Uhhhh….  Turns out that when we disconnected the pump back when we did our big boat haul out, we forgot to reprime it, and it had no suction to pump the water out.  We Matt got it working again, but I’m certain that won’t be the last surprise in store for us this trip.  Oh boy, it’s an adventure already.

This morning we woke up and pulled anchor around 9:00am, ready to make the next leg of our trip south.  Being in the South River for a few days made us pretty antsy and we were really ready to be on our way.  As soon as we got out into the bay, we were greeted with 25 knot winds and 4-5′ waves.  Woah.  We attempted to put our main up, but decided not to push fate on our first big trip out.  Smart move too, because with just our genoa up, we were cruising at a steady 7 knots, with our max speed at 11.5 – a personal best for the boat.

Matt tried to throw a line out to catch some rockfish, but I think we were going to fast for anything to bite.  The speed was great, but let me tell you – it was f’ing COLD.  Both of us were bundled up in our coldgear with our offshore jackets bundled as tight as we could get them.  I was trying to answers some emails and my fingers were too numb to type.  Glad we’re hauling ass because I can not tell you how excited I am for warmer weather.

Despite the rough seas, our iPad managed to stay put right where we left it last night.  Bonus point for having a catamaran…. I bet that thing would be bouncing off the walls in a monohull.

So we finally get into Solomon’s Island at 4:00pm.  As soon as we rounded the point we had the wind blowing directly into our face, dropping our speed from a cruisin' 7.5 knots to an excruciatingly slow 3.5 knots.  It seriously felt like we were going backwards.  #needforspeed

We did a sweep of the island and decided to anchor just up Mill Creek, which according to our Waterway Cruising Guide, provided a great protection from the wind. Not at all.  Unfortunately, it’s still “blowing like snot” as Matt likes to say.  So we attempted to anchor in some cove near another boat who looked like they were in nice and firm.  We tried to anchor twice.  Matt swore we were hooked, but I had my doubts and was not being very reassuring.  We really need to get better at this thing.   Finally, we decided that the boat was good enough and took the dinghy ashore in search of a burger and a glass of wine.

As soon as we docked the dinghy, we stumbled upon this little island oasis… I’m sure it’s a pretty happening place when it’s warm out, but it looked like a deserted shanty town today.  There was a little tiki bar next to it where I assumed you could get some good bar eats.  When we inquired about the menu, the bartender replied “Oh, we don’t serve food, hon.  Just liquor”.  Well, alrighty then… on to the next.

So…. we wandered about 100 yards down the road to another place that did serve food, and sat down to order.  From our window seat we had a great view of our boat.  Which looked like it had majorly drifted.

SHIT!

We rushed our order thru, ran back to the dinghy, and hauled ass back to the boat.  Only to find that it hadn’t drifted at all, the wind had shifted and it just looked like it had moved.  Ugh… I really need to get used to this whole anchoring thing. Clearly we’ve been on the dock for so long I’ve grown soft and become accustomed to being tied to something that doesn’t move. That cement pier behind us will be the object of my nightmares tonight.   Getting closer and closer, like it’s chasing me.  I think I might be sleeping with one eye open just in case…