Day 1 - To Solomons

We got down to the the boat late Friday night.  As is tradition, we had some technical boat issues to start the trip.  This year, the compressor started running at 4 in the morning because we ran out of fresh water (started with 100+ gallons).  Strange because no one was using water in the middle of the night and it also seemed like the bilge pump was running quite a bit.  Tracked it down underway in the morning. The stern shower was slightly open.  Easy fix.  The required before picture on departure:

We had Captain Mike's special egg dish for breakfast (minus the sausage I could not find buried in the fridge) cooked while we sailed down the bay.  We had good wind in the morning and it was a following wind so we got lots of jibe practice.  Ken and newest Steve got lots of wheel time.

 

We did about an hour of motoring when the wind died near the LNG terminal.  Then it picked up enough to fly the big chute and sail leisurely the rest of the way to Solomons Island.  We dodged fishing boats the whole way down and none of them seemed to be catching anything but we were!  New Steve caught the biggest rock fish we have ever caught on Serenity.  Just an inch or two short of the 18" keeper length.

As we came into the Patuxent river, a Navy blimp circled us a few times.

 We got a great spot as always at Zahnisers marina.  We celebrated a successful first leg with dark and stormies with an added kick that I learned in the Governor's Cup race of adding hot peppers to the drink.  I could not find halapenios but the store had jalapenos which turned out to be very similar to what I remembered.

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