Kiptopeake and back home to Cobbs marina

After the thunder & lightning at 0430, we slept in until 1040. It was a nice calm morning, with the boat barely moving, making for great sleeping conditions. Had breakfast then inflated the dingy to explore ashore.

The bay is part of the Kiptopeake State Park, so when we went ashore we found a nice walkway to trails through the forest. It was a beautiful morning, warm and sunny. We wandered around the trails, and up to a small camping store at the pier. The store just opened last weekend and is operated by friendly Park personnel.

We checked the former ferry pier, and then headed back to the boat.

By the time we had everything put away and were ready to raise the anchor it was nearly 1400. We went out, and decided not to pass under the bridge at the Northern end, but rather take a more direct route back. We had the tide under us all afternoon, and the forecast of NE breeze, which would be from astern at around 14 mph.

But once out it was very light, and the boat was hardly moving. We had lunch and then after about an hour the wind abruptly filled from the NE under a dark cloud. We went for a chute, gybed and were making great progress down the rhumb line.

As we progressed the wind continued to veer to the East, and came up a bit. The chop was getting bigger as we got away from the shore, and it made for great sailing!

We crossed 2 shipping lanes, and on both occasions had pretty close crossings with commercial traffic, both of which we passed in front of.

As we got further down the route, with the strong breeze we had to stay close to DDW, or else the boat was too loaded up. Later around first Island, we dropped the chute and power reached to the cut with the #3 and full main. Brigite did most of the driving here and did great!

We got in around 17:30, which was a great time as we still had the full evening to do things at home, and get ready for the work week. The trip over took 6:30 hours, and we did 24.5 nm, coming back it took only 3:45 and was much more direct at only 18.7 nm.

A great weekend sailing, exploring, cruising and having fun - basically a great way to celebrate ones 41st birthday!!!