Day 7 Solomons to Tilghman

We had some of the best wind for sailing this morning of the whole trip.   As we came out of Solomons we had 15+ knot winds and Serenity just eats that up.  We were neck and neck with a French boat until we hit the bigger wind and then we left him in le dust.

New Steve got some good up wind wheel time today and made huge gains in being able to use the telltales and feel of the boat to keep it in the fast up-wind groove.

 We mixed the leftovers for lunch and had a chicken quinoa ancho chile pork dish  that was awesome.  Fast Steve got the multitasking award for sailing the boat (computer assisted), eating lunch, and keeping all the dishes on the table as we heeled.

I got a nice rock fish today on the same lure that caught a rock fish previously.

 Letting the wind direction determine our course, we ran behind Sharps Island and up the back side of Tilghman Island to Knapps Narrows.  We came through the shallow water that caused me quite a bit of concern as this is the same area where I previously grounded the boat and the depth gauge was reading 4' 2" and the boat needs 4' 6".  We made it though and went through the oldest and most active draw bridge in the country.

We are spending the night at the Knapps Narrows Marina.  At dinner tonight a survey of waitresses voted no for captain Mike's new plan to grow a pony tail.  Captain Mike was not dissuaded.

After diner, we saw the Rebecca T. Ruark skipjack where we ran into Wade Murphy.  This is a famous skipjack captain who has been a skipjack oysterman for many, many years and also wins all the skipjack races.  He asked Fast Steve if he had any medical conditions and when assured that we were in relatively good health he put us to work raising his heavy push boat.  Once that was done, he talked to us for quite a while about his boat, his wife, and oyster dredging with a skipjack.  Really interesting person and nice finishing touch to our exploration of Tilghman Island.

Tonight we are going to keep an eye out for the predicted meteors and then tomorrow we will head back to our home port of Herrington Harbour. Another great Spring trip in the books.