Saturday we left Annapolis for Solomons Island. It was a cold but uneventful trip on the Chesapeake. When we left the Solomons Island inlet on Sunday, we had the company of six other sailboats! We are finally joining the stragglers that are heading south. The weather was good and we were making good progress, so we ended up making it to Deltaville that evening.
On Monday morning we left for Norfolk/Portsmouth, and we saw our first pelicans flying a low circle around our boat on the way out of the harbour. There was a small craft advisory in effect and it was quite windy. This was the roughest day on the water we had seen yet in terms of waves. At one point we hit 12 knots of speed as we surfed down a wave! This was the first of what will likely be many days of training of the crew to deal with rougher weather - Geru did fine, but Geoff and Ruth were shaken up. The waves felt huge but in reality were probably about 5 feet high. Surfing or running with the waves was bad enough, but when we had to cross them at an angle to get into Norfolk it became somewhat scary. As we said, the crew needs to get used to it...
Entering Norfolk, we passed a portion of the US naval fleet, which is quite impressive when seen from waterlevel. We stayed the night at a familiar marina where we had Geru surveyed last summer before we bought her.
Annapolis Harbour
US Navy in Norfolk
US Navy in Norfolk
