2006.11.19

Well I guess part two of this voyage is now completed. I count part one as Lake Champlain to Baltimore (which we have now done in each direction, so are quite blase about ) and now we are at the south end of Chesapeake Bay (part two) , preparing to move into the Intracoastal Waterway (part three) proper, bright and early tomorrow.
Yesterday, we left Fishing Bay Harbour Marina after topping up our fuel at around 08.15 hrs to be met with a good strong 15/18 knot wind from the North. Up went both sails, off went the motor and we set of with Catherine driving at some 8.5 knots, just about hull speed. Regrettably this was not to last for as we turned towards the south the wind remained dead astern which meant that our genoa was blanketed by the main, and with main only we were unable to maintain the speed necessary to ensure that we made our objective arrival port in good light and on time. So on came the engine again and we motor sailed for most of the day at 7.5 kots surfing on some of the larger rollers at up to 9.6 knots. I was glad that we were going south with wind, swell and waves astern of us, the few boats that we saw going north were having a rough time of it.

So we rock and rolled into Hampton Roads harbour and are now docked at Hampton Public Marina, a nice place close to the centre of downtown, somewhere that we have never been before and which, quite obviously, has played no small part in the wars between the British and Americans, since there are numerous historical signs on various street corners. A lot of the town that we are in is quite old by North American standards going back to the early eighteen hundreds.
Today - Sunday - has been a day of rest - Andre, Louise and us two walked for a couple of miles to pick up a few groceries - ensuring that there was nothing heavy since we had to carry it back , we stopped for lunch, crabcakes, the specialty of this area we were then invited to Jem for drinks as Andre regaled us with ice boat racing video tapes of all things... I thought the whole idea of this trip was to get away from things like ICE... but it was beautiful nevertheless.

Tonight will be an early night since we intend to get an early start, past the Norfolk shipyards, U S Navy base, ship terminals and into the James river which leads us through the Albermarle and Chesapeake canal and thus into the Albermarle sound. We have numerous bridges to pass through both opening and fixed and one lock - the governing height of the fixed bridges is 65 ' - our mast is 57'06" plus our antenna and wind instruments so we should be OK at perhaps 60'06" or so. I take comfort in the fact that the previous owners also made this trip with no difficulty, let us hope that nothing has changed in the last three or four years!
That's all from me but I daresay that Catherine may work her magic before we leave and post a few pictures of today's shopping trip etc.