fetchinketch

That could be the motto of the cruising sailor. Even when you think you have everything perfect, one more look around for problems never hurts.  In that spirit, I was going over the boat again today, and found this unfortunate problem on our mainsail foil.  The metal part that is cracked is the rotating part that furls our mainsail inside the mast.

It looks like a pretty easy fix–once we get to Fort Lauderdale and can access a machine shop, but in the meantime, we’ll be sailing without our mainsail.

Now, contrary to the name, on this boat the “main” sail is not the most important sail in making the boat go. For us, that would be the genoa in the front of the boat.  Not having access to the mainsail will slow us down a bit in light winds, but won’t make that big a difference most of the time.

Things still look OK for our departure tomorrow morning.  We might have some time to sit and wait through some calm winds, but nothing difficult or scary is forecast.

Since we are not in a rush to get to the end of the Chesapeake Bay, we have been anchoring at night instead of sailing on in the cold darkness. We had another beautiful sail today.  Not quite as fast or exciting as yesterday, but sunny and a bit warmer.  We made good time for most of the day, and ended up in the picturesque town of Reedville.

Based on the forecast for tomorrow, our run of perfect winds is going to change, and we’ll have to work our way against a headwind down to Norfolk.  With a cold front passing over the next few days, it looks like November 3 will be our day to jump out into the ocean for the passage south.

Whenever we are talking to local sailors about our plans to move south for the winter, they always ask some version of the following question, “Inside? Or Outside?”  They are asking if we will be following the Intracoastal Waterway (the ICW), or going out into the ocean.

The ICW is a connected chain of bodies of water which–in theory–allow a boat to travel from Manasquan, New Jersey all the way to Galveston, Texas without ever venturing into the open ocean. Many boats use it.  For us it is not a realistic option.  The standard height for bridges on the the ICW is 65 feet.  Our mast is over 67 feet high.  Even worse, we need at least 6 and a half feet of water to float.  Many parts of the ICW are much shallower than that. Somehow taking a boat like Harmonie “down the ditch” just doesn’t seem quite right.  Like taking a F1 race car to the corner store to pick up a gallon of milk!

For us, and our boat, the ocean is the far better option.  With reasonable care watching the weather, we feel completely safe offshore where there are few other boats to dodge, and no shallows or rocks to run up on.  Out in the ocean we get to relax–a bit–while sailing.  Whenever we are near the “hard stuff” we have to pay constant attention.

Besides, out in the middle of the ocean is where the big fish live!!

We left Annapolis morning to a fast sail down the bay.  Harmonie was blasting along on a beam reach at 8 to 9.5 knots almost all day. As we gathered more weather information it became clear that there was no need to rush down to the mouth of the Bay and the ocean.  That left us with a decision:  Sail all night in the cold?  Or anchor overnight and sleep under the fluffy down comforter?  Hmmm…  let’s think about that…

A few very small, widely scattered showers were blowing through as we approached Solomons Island to anchor for the night.  As one sprinkled on us Karen, always one to look on the bright side, commented, “It is better than snow!”

We got the anchor down and set, and began to relax, when a tiny little black cloud came right over the top of us, and started to drop some light rain.  Karen quickly noticed that the raindrops were bouncing when they hit the deck…  “Argh!  It’s ice!”  Sure enough, this little cloud was punching well above its weight and dropping small hail on us. In three minutes it was all over.

It’s quiet and settled now. There are many other boats taking advantage of the same weather we are to move down the bay.  There is a large crowd of boats that have already arrived in Norfolk and are going to be looking to leave for points south early next week.  It will be interesting to see everyone choses the same day to leave…

Tomorrow morning we start our migration south.  We untie from the docks here at Jabin’s Yard, and ride what we hope will be a following wind down the Chesapeake Bay.

The ocean weather for our passage south to Florida is still a bit questionable, not so much for safety, but for comfort. Since we do this for fun, it makes no sense to head out into weather where we will get tossed around if we do not need to!  If it continues like uncertain, we’ll be making our way as far south as Norfolk, at the entrance to the Bay.  Will will anchor and wait there for a few days until the next cold front drops down, and makes the weather more palatable for a run offshore.

It’s cold here now, nights consistently in the low 40’s.  There has been some frost, and the leaves on the trees are starting to color.  Sailing will be chilly for a day or so as we head out into the ocean.  We actually were out this morning picking up some longjohns for the cool night watches! By the time we are about 150 miles offshore we hit the Gulf Stream where the water temperature is in the low 80’s, and the air will warm quickly.

In the space of two weeks, the weather here has gone from, “Doesn’t that breeze feel good and cool?” to, “Doesn’t that sunshine feel nice and warm?”  That can only mean one thing, it is getting to be time to migrate!  The Chesapeake Bay is of course a major stop on the bird migrations of the east coast.  The sounds of large flocks of geese honking their way south is an evocative sound of the changing seasons. We’ll soon be joining them.

We have been working hard every day to get more of our projects complete.  There is one more part with a delivery expected by the end of this week to get our wind instruments back up and talking to the other devices on the boat.  We have had successful major overhauls of a number of systems, and some repairs. We have lights up the mast to fix, and then we’ll be ready to sail again.

Our plans from here are still developing.  In the short term, we will be headed to Fort Lauderdale to paint Harmonie’s bottom.  After that, things get murky!  There might be a business opportunity helping a new Amel owner with a major refit.  If so that might keep us parked in the Sunshine State for a bit.  We are seriously exploring the idea of heading to Panama, south of the hurricane zone, for the summer season next year.  For now, we are going with the flow.

We have updated our tacking website with our voyage tracking, so if you are interested, have a look https://fetchinketch.net/where-are-we-now/

As we were getting Harmonie ready to leave the dock for the weekend, Karen was up on deck and I was down below.  I didn’t hear it, but Karen called me on deck, and said, “Only one thing makes that noise!”

We walked over to the other side of the boat yard where…

Oops!!!!

You can see the racks of boats that are stored “dry.”  If one of those is your boat, you call the yard, and tell them you want to go sailing, and they pick your boat up with a special forklift and put it in the water for you.  Sometimes, very rarely, something goes wrong.

We are guessing the boatyard just bought themselves a J-24.  The crew rushed the crane over to pick up the debris before too many people saw the body on the pavement.

The only question I have is: How did Karen know what a J-24 sailboat sounds like hitting concrete after falling 10 feet???? (It was the echo of the crunching fiberglass, she says.)

Right now we are anchored off downtown Annapolis, and we will be making our way over toward St Michaels tomorrow for the Amel meet-up. We are looking forward to meeting a lot of people whom we know only from online postings.

Autumn is here, at least by the calendar.  The hottest days are past, and we are wrapping up a long and complex list of projects. We have finished getting Harmonie‘s electrical system upgraded to exactly what we what, we fixed a leaking hatch, did many minor repairs to generator, and rigging.  Replaced an old and corroded anchor windlass, cleaned, polished, sealed, waterproofed, and organized.  The boat is looking, and working, great.

This coming week we will be visiting with over a dozen other Amel yachts that will be gathering in St. Michaels, Maryland.  At the end of the week is the big sailboat show here in Annapolis.  For us, this year will likely to be more a social outing than a shopping expedition. The last of the shiny new boats are getting rigged here at the boat yard for display.  Overheard on the docks: “It’s for the boat show.  It doesn’t have to work, just look good!”

Once the boat show is over, we begin final preparations to migrate south.  We are still working on our plans for where to go, and when to get there.  We have one or two things to do in Florida, but this year it will be a short visit to the Sunshine State before we head further south and east.