Day 1 Sailing through adversity

Well, we got to the boat by around 8:30 and discovered that I turned off the battery charger last time I was down working on the boat so the batteries were dead. There was also a pool of antifreeze under the engine.
We topped off the antifreeze, charged the batter for an hour or so, tested the engine to make sure all was well (the antifreeze came from winterization of the water system, not the engine), and headed out.
We got on the water around 10:15.

The predicted 10 to 15 knot wind turned out to be steady at 20 knots with gust to 30+. We sailed with a partial jib and kept the engine running to charge up the batteries. It was a chilly trip but not bad with lots of layers.

We saw lots of larger freighters, went under the Bay Bridge, saw the entrance to Baltimore harbor from the Bay and rounded Hart Miller Island into Middle River.

We made it into Middle River around 6 but deliberated for a while about where to spend the night. To make sure there was a full charge on the batteries, we decided to spend the night in a slip but docking with 30 knot gusts is tricky and we needed to back into the slip. We took our time and eventually work our way in with some fancy motoring and creative use of every dock line I have on the boat.

We were snug in the slip with time to catch the sunset. Steve cooked a great shrimp dinner. It is nice to be in a slip rather than anchored out tonight. All-in-all not the best sailing day but a good trip. We traveled over 40 nautical miles and this is the furthest north I have ever been on a boat on the bay. Also the first time for Helix under the Bay Bridge. Tomorrow we pick up Darrin and go onto Havre De Grace.