Friday, June 8,2012
    I didn't mention in the Wednesday blog, that when I pulled into Willoughby Bay and anchored I noticed helicopters about a few hundred feet from me doing maneuvers over the water. They were dropping, I assume, Navy Seals , out of the helicopters on ropes and  into the water. Then a little while later they would pick them up. This went on for hours, and also into the following day. This bay was surrounded with helicopter hangers packed with helicopters. They were doing all sorts of maneuvers throughout the day and night. besides this there were war planes whizzing over head, the noise was tremendous. quite a show.Yesterday I took the day off and puttered around the boat.
   So anyway I awoke this morning feeling a need to move on. I had breakfast then raised the anchor. As I was moving out of the bay I noticed what seemed like hundreds of sailboats sailing up the river into the Chesapeake. At first I figured this must be a big group coming back form the Bahamas. As I got closer to the Elizabeth River I noticed these tremendous tall ships, square riggers, coming off the Chesapeake into the Elizabeth River. This was a parade and the sailboats were all going out to greet the tall ships.This, as I later found out, was an OP_Sail event. They have this every year , but this year was special. They were celebrating the war of 1812. Why I don't know. Anyway there way the fire boat with his fire hoses roaring. There was an Aircraft Carrier in full dress, in the middle of the river, saluting the ships. There were hundreds of anything that could float on the water watching the parade.
  I paraded alongside for a while, and then turned into the Lafayette River to a really nice quiet anchorage.
Once anchored I got into a pleasant conversation with a local sailor who told me slot of the ins and outs of the area. For instance , where a super market would be, restaurants, and also info about the anchorage. To get to the super market I had to take my dinghy around a bend into a little cove and tie it to a bush. From there I walked across a highway and caught a bus. The super market was about 5 miles away, I thought about my dinghy a lot, on this ride, hoping that it would still be there when I got back. Anyway I bought my groceries, and a Chinese dinner, caught another bus back, got in my dink which was still there, and motored  back to Sparrow.
   That was all yesterday. Today I am now in a Library, close to where my dinghy is tied to another bush, catching up on entering these blogs. I did mention that my wifi antenna was out of order, and so this is what I must do for now in order to post my blogs.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012
     It is 11 AM and I am just passing  Cape Charles. 17 hours. The seas have been pretty calm for a while.For some reason I thought the trip was almost over. I pictured in my head the charts that I had looked over before even leaving my house. On the chart after passing the cape you go from this lighter blue area to a darker blue, and eventually into a white area which is the channel. As I actually get into the Chesapeake Bay, I realize that I can't see the other side, now I realize that the other side is 20 miles away, another 4 hours. Once I get to the other side and catch the channel then I have to head up the bay to Hampton Roads and into the Elizabeth River. This as I will learn will take another 3 hours.    I go across the Chesapeake and catch the 'Thimble Shoal Channel'. You need this channel to get you past the Chesapeake Bridge Tunnel road way. by now things are starting to get a little ugly. Not to mention that I am starting to get pretty tired. Now, not only is it getting rough as I proceed along the channel, but there are also war ships, container ships, and freighters whizzing by you. Their wakes are tremendous, and they don't slow up for you. Another problem is because of the chop, and the fact that the markers are pretty far apart, it is difficult to see them. Anyway I move along in this chop until I finally make my turn into Hampton Roads. At this point the waves are behind me, and with each wave I am lifted and then surfing. Things don't calm down until I reach the Elizabeth River. When you enter the river, if you make that first left turn you wind up in Willioughby Bay. I pulled in anchored, had a delicious dinner of beans and rice, called a friend, and then hit the sack. I was on the road for 24 hours. Very tired. BTW I have only used 13 gallons of diesel fuel to get to this point.

Tues, June 5, 2012
    I woke up to strong northerly winds. Working on my strategy for heading to Norfolk, my feelings at present is that I will head out tonight, before sunset. According to Wx weather we will have NE winds 15 to 20 knots part of the day then changing to the East, and also diminishing. This also should give me a pretty good push going South. During the day I dinghyed over to a fisherman's pier, filled up a 5 gallon Gerry can with diesel fuel, and also grabbed a bite to eat. At a fishing supply store I enquired as to the next best inlet to pull into south of here. The reply was Virginia Beach. Think of that for the next 80 or more miles there are no safe inlets to pull into. There are inlets, but you take your life in your hands trying to pull into them.
    I go out the OC inlet at 6 PM. Because of the strong NE winds there were breakers, and white caps everywhere. In order to go out in the safest way, it is advised to head for the OC #1 bouy, about a mile out.
  This is positioned  so that you stay in the deepest waters while getting away from the inlet. While heading over to this buoy, because of the strong NE winds, the boat would be climbing a hill and then falling into a valley. this went on for about 15 or 20 minutes. Eventually I turned South and the ride started to smooth out, with swells coming at my port side. I adjusted my sails and psyched myself into the long trip ahead. As night was starting to fall I decided to turn on my navigation lights. I turned them on, went to the front of the boat to check them out, and they were not working. My stern light was also out. Great. Down below I have this portable red/green dinghy, battery operated, running light. I grabbed it and tie wrapped it to the front of the boat. for an all around stern light I used a bright solar lawn light. All set, now with the auto pilot doing the steering I can just lay back and enjoy the ride. Winds were dropping to around 6 knots. I am using my engine and my mail sail and sta-sail.
   I have often talked about when I get tired at night I would take a 20 minute power nap. Just enough time to get rid of some of that sleepiness without putting you into a deep sleep. So before I left on the trip I stopped at Target and picked up a kitchen timer. This one looked nice, larger then the usual plastic ones and it took an AAA battery. Nice, easy to change. I even tried it out in the store. I broke the packaging and set it for 2 minutes. It worked great. So now on my trip I am feeling sleepy so I set the timer for 20 minutes, and go off to sleep. after 5 minutes this thing lets off two loud beeps and wakes me up. I go what the heck, and I go back to sleep. 5 minutes after that another 2 loud beeps. This continued until the 20 minutes expired, and then it did its alarm. Now realize, this was not relaxing, it was more like Chinese water drop, on the forehead, torture. I gave up trying to get any further rest until the morning when visibility was good and I could be seen by other boats. At that point I used the timer on my IPhone.

Monday, June 4, 2012
     I wake up early, probably around 6AM, and have a good breakfast. BTW I forgot to mention in yesterdays blog that my wireless antenna was not working. I called the outfit where I purchased it from, and as we trouble shoot it we come to the conclusion that when I was running the cable I damaged it somehow. Bummer. At least I still have my IPhone to watch Internet weather. Which means that I will not be able to blog from my boat every evening. I  get the boat ready for the next stop which was going to be Ocean City, Maryland,. I setup my navigation program on the laptop, and also on my Garmin GPS display, and take care of a few other chores on the boat. I take off at about 8 AM, The wind is blowing good, about 15 to 22 knots. A lot of times, while I am sailing, I might have the engine running only to top off the batteries and take care of the electronics especially the auto pilot, which if it has to work hard is an energy user. So I figure since the engine is going to be on for a while I might as well run the RO water system and make water. Going down the Maryland coast the wind was strong and gusty. Also about an hour into the trip the water maker choked. I just shut it off, figured I would check it out later.
   I pulled into Ocean City, MD, at around 2:30 PM. The inlet is pretty easy to navigate. So I go in and bear to the left behind Assateague Island, following the buoys. In the channel I hit ground. I throw out an anchor, and go down below to feed my cat, who once he hears the anchor lower starts yelling that he wants to eat. That fact that I hit ground didn't bother me because I realized that it was low tide, and as the tide raised I would be free. So I must of been below deck for about 10 maybe 15 minutes of so and when I came up I realized that the wind and waves bobbed me across the bay almost onto the Assateague beach. Now this did bother me because I felt that I might need BoatUS in order to pull me off if I went any further in. I lowered my dinghy, attached my outboard, lowered my Bruce anchor with about a 150 foot of rode attached, connected the bitter end to the sailboat, and motored as far as I could into deep water and dropped the anchor. Now I go  back to the boat to start pulling the boat to deeper water.. This was tricky because when I realized that I had been blown over to this spot I immediately put out more rode on my original CQR anchor to hold me from blowing me further on to the beach. So now I had to recover my CQR before I could pull myself over to the Bruce. Anyway after about 15 or 20 minutes or so I was free.

I motored over to a decent spot, relaxed, and watched the Assateague ponies make their way to the bay to get a drink of water. BTW These ponies live on the island all year long and drink the salt water from the bay.

Sunday, June 3, 2012
   I left AC at 6AM. The winds were westerly, and blowing from 12 to 20 knots. The ride was great. Lots of wind hardly any waves. I passed Cape May inlet around 1 PM. I was going to go into Cape May, but decided that since I was making such good time that I would continue across the Delaware River to Lewes, D.E. At Lewes they have these big stone gettys which they call 'Harbor of Refuge'. Actually they have two of these gettys facing in different positions, so that wherever the wind or waves are coming from, you have protection. I used 3 gallons of diesel fuel from my house to here. Tonight was my first meal of rice and beans. I was so hungry it tasted great.

Saturday, June 2, 2012
I wake up around 5AM. The Cat, wanting to eat, is my alarm clock. The tide was abnormally high. This was good because it gave me more time to leave. I decide to at least set my GPS. I look for it it's not here. I have a mine heart attack. I forgot all of my instruments. I jump in my car, and driving around 90 MPH on the back roads, I get to my house in record time. BTW my house is only 75 miles from the dock. My instruments were pretty close to the front door. I have no idea how I missed them. While at the house I grabbed a few extra items and headed back to the boat. I was back at the boat by 9AM, and the tide was still high enough for me to get out. If I don't have enough water then I can't leave the dock.
  I left the dock and in about 3 hours or so arrived in Atlantic City. BTW, The weather was predicted to get cold and windy, lots of storms over the next several days. I saw this coming about 3 days previous, and noticed that the winds were going to blow from the West, Northwest, and Northeast for several days. To me this was great. Exactly what I would need in order to get a good push South. I anchor in this place called the Black Hole in Brigantine. I have not been here for a few years, and as I come in it seems shallower then what I remember, but then again the tide is still dropping. I have dinner, go to sleep, and about 4 AM I wake up to find that I am sleeping on a 45 degree angle. for some reason the boat must of swung on it's anchor and put me on a hill at low tide. I found it difficult to sleep like this, trying to hold onto the bunk so I would not slide off, and try to sleep at the same time. The cat was acting weird also, maybe he realized that this was not normal. Anyway I relocated to the floor, and in the morning the boat was floating.

Friday, June 1, 2012
   I am finally ready to go on my trip. I load up my jeep with all my supplies and equipment, my cat and I am on my way. Now I have been loading provisions on the boat for several days, plus I have been taken care of the surveyors issues. So now I get to the boat, load the remainder of the supplies on it, and I am almost ready to go. I figure that I will set up my instruments once out in the bay. I was going to leave now, but realized if I leave this evening that I would only be able to get out to the bay and anchor. What I really wanted to do is once I left the dock I would head straight for Atlantic City. So with that in mind I decide to sleep on the boat at the dock for tonight.