"Sea Trial" - 09/12/2009

We wanted to sail on Friday as it was a gorgeous day, and Brigite had the day off, but I had too much going on and couldn't get away. Then we were going to go Saturday, but the weather didn't cooperate. But on Sunday it all came together!

Wind was from the NE 13 kn and forecast to ease during the afternoon. We decided to sail out the southern gap in the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (CBBT) out into the Ocean, and come back in through the other (northern) gap in the CBBT, and then back to our dock at Little Creek.

We put up the #3 and one reef in the main, and the boat was well balanced. Underpowered in some of the bigger lulls, and Overpowered in the gusts - the wind was very unstable, which is rare from that direction. It was a lovely sunny afternoon in the high 70s.

Two other boats sailed out around the same time as us, a Hunter 33 and a beautiful big blue boat, that was like Silver Fox's big sister. She was being single-handed. Big Blue was called Blue Angel we later found out. She sailed the same trip with us.

We sailed out and opened a bottle of champers to celebrate Foxy's trip into the ocean! We toasted the boat and of course King Neptune.

There was a strange tide-line of small dead fish that was a bit weird and off-putting, but we sailed past it and didn't dwell on it too much.

On the other side of the CBBT we had good views of all the supertankers at anchor waiting for their instructions, plus we saw Cape Henry light and Cape Charles light.

We passed back in through the Northern passage, and over the tunnel, and then bore off and set the chute. Blue Angel also set a chute, but our little boat was much faster downwind, and we didn't have to worry about being left behind!

The wind continued to decrease, but was enough to keep the spinnaker pulling. At the mouth of the harbor entrance we doused, and the engine decided to act up, and took forever of cranking to finally start. Its a tempermental little bugger!




It was another awesome day cruise for Brigite, Foxy and Me!