Wednesday - Little Choptank to Deale

Continuing the trip theme of adventure, we had our first thunderstorm while on board last night. The wind was predicted to shift during the night from south to northwest. This can be trouble when anchored because the anchor is set in one direction and it can pop out and drag if pulled from a radically different direction.

The wind shifted rapidly around 11:30. The anchor held but with the new wind direction, Helix had shallow water just behind it. We decided to reset the anchor which was tough in the pitch dark with howling wind. We fell back on training from one of our sailing classes and used hand signals (I could not hear Steve from the bow as he worked the anchor line and I drove). It worked perfectly and the new position was much better because it gave us time to react if the anchor did drag. I left the GPS running with an anchor drag alarm set and the anchor held nicely despite lots of wind and the storm.

This morning was gray, windy, and rainy.


We cooked some pancakes and then headed out. With strong wind out of the northwest and big waves, we were in for a long day of motoring to get home. In the early morning the wind was very strong and the waves were 3 to 4+ feet. The bow would pitch up and then down and crash into the next wave just like it does on the crab boats in Deadliest Catch. I tried to get a picture of this but it was hard to time. This is the best I got.

With the rain we had all the canvas coverings up and we had to steer through the dodger which gives limited visibility.
We got almost out of the Little Choptank but the progress was so slow against the wind and wave action that I got worried about our fuel levels (bouncing between 1/4 and empty). We turned around and went all the way back up Slaughter Creed to get more diesel. The second time we made it out and across the bay. As the wind died down from 25 knots to ~ 18 knots, we put out some jib which steadied the boat and increased our speed. Late in the afternoon the sun came out and we had a few hours of nice motor sailing.

We made it back the Herrington Harbor around 6:30 PM. The last day was not great but it is good to learn to handle nasty headwinds and waves. The trip overall was terrific. By far the most sailing we have ever done in a 5 day stretch and a few days were absolutely perfect. The final trip total was 232 nautical miles and we were underway for 57.5 hours over a 5 day period so more than 11 hours per day on the water. Not bad at all.