A “High Five” is what we gave each other after we finished our sail on Sunday. Yes, we finally put the tools down and went for a sail on the Chesapeake. It was a beautiful, warm sunny day with the wind was on the light side. It was just as well that the wind was light as we are still learning how Makara handles and had some calibrations to perform on the autopilot (AP) which required calm waters.
After we got up and had some breakfast we headed back to the boat and prepped her for a sail. It didn't take too long to get her ship shape and soon we were departing the slip, much to the chagrin of our neighbors who thought all we did was work on the boat. Our first order of business was to run the calibration sequence on the autopilot. This was done under power as we had to do a series of circular maneuvers. We must have looked a bit odd going round and round in circles. After accomplishing this tasks one more line was off our “list” and the boat symbol on the chart plotters was facing the correct direction, something which had been seriously irritating us. Up until now we had been sailing backwards as far as the plotter was concerned. Happy at our new found direction we proceeded to hoist sail.
Once the sails were hoisted, several practice runs at the dock helped this go very smoothly; we were heading across the bay toward the east shore. We could see the Annapolis Bay Bridge to the north and it was so clear we could see the Thomas Point Lighthouse to the south. But that immediately led to a conundrum…which way to go. Each was an enticing destination. As is so often the case with a sailboat, it was the wind that made the choice. On this day the wind was from the south, which was a little unusual. That meant if we meandered on a broad reach/run to the bridge the second half of the sail would be a hard beat back. On the other hand if we beat south first to the lighthouse then we could enjoy a flat leisurely run back. Besides, both of us wanted to see the unique lighthouse at Thomas Point. So south it was.
For those not familiar with lighthouse lore on the Chesapeake, the Thomas Point lighthouse is one of the few remaining screw pile lighthouses in existence. It is only one of a few lighthouses still in service as an aid to navigation. These are lovely hexagonal structures mounted on an iron framework which is anchored on, you guessed it, screw pilings. To learn more about this historical landmark follow this link: Thomas Point Lighthouse.
As expected on Sunday many other boaters of all types were out enjoying the bay. There were also several anchored, large commercial vessels and an occasional one moving up toward Baltimore. It was quite fun tacking down the bay weaving in and out of the chaos of race boats and just plain boats having fun. As always we were careful to observe the rules of the road. This is not always easy when the other one is the stand on boat and is not real clear on which direction they are going to go. The most interesting boat was one that was grilling burgers on the stern rail as they tacked down the bay. Now that was interesting and smelled oh so good as we passed their stern.
After an hour or so we had covered approximately five nautical miles since we had turned south. This was the other “High Five” for the day as we finally made a southing of about five nautical miles. We couldn’t keep going but it was tempting. Small steps I guess.
After a photo shoot at the lighthouse we turned back up the bay. The wind was very light, not more the 10 knots at best, so on the down wind run the apparent wind was a lot less. We loped along at a steady 4 knots or so just as nice as can be. By this time the race we had gone through earlier had come back down near our path and had spinnakers flying. Pretty sight but now we had to thread that line of boats. With a little finesse we made it through. This also gave us an opportunity, one of the first, to try out the radar away from shore. Worked real great. We could target all the little boats and could make out the rather large blob that was the anchored commercial vessel. Even more fascinating was having our bow facing camera on one screen and the radar on another. We could track a target and as it crossed the bow see it go by on the camera.
We made it up to the Annapolis approach entrance buoys in one tack then jibed and continued to run in until we were ready to bring the sails in. This was accomplished smartly. Nancy has even gotten the hang of adjusting the flake of the main on the way down. Once all was ship shape we turned and headed for Back Creek. As usual for late afternoon on a Sunday boats were returning, big ones, little ones, power and sail, and even the occasional kayak. We are one of the bigger ones and as you all know boats don’t have brakes. So we delicately and cautiously got in line and made our way in. The only thing left was getting into the slip. I like to go stern in as Makara sits better in our slip and is easier to get on and off of. However this means backing all the way in from Back Creek. I knew it could be done as I had done it once before, last time we were out. So, I picked my spot to start put her in reverse and did a sweeping “U” from the creek to the slip in one fluid motion. That means I did not hit anything and got her stern between the outer piling of our slip. A fitting ending for a fine day once we got all the mooring lines on. At that point a few quiet moments with a celebratory cold beer were in order. First sail of the season accomplishe.
Lest you think all we did was sail there were a few other things we did prior to Sunday. All play and no work makes for a boat whose “to do” list doesn’t shrink. The day before we sailed the remaining reefing lines (#1 and #2) were rigged as the evening was very calm before sunset which made raising and lowering the main at the slip quiet easy. We also tested each reefing point by doing a reefing drill for each. We got one of our safety flashlights, a big red anodized 2-D cell LED Maglite, mounted at the companionway in easy reach when exiting the cabin or from anywhere aft in the cabin. Finally Nancy mounted and wired a Seatalk to NMEA bridge, an NMEA multiplexer and NMEA expander to allow feeding position data to the radios. Once the radio cables were installed we had position and time data on the radios displays. This also means that we have position data available to encode in our DSC signals, especially the Mayday button signals. Hopefully we will never need them but nice to know they are there and fully functional.
Given we had two lovely nights on the boat, good work accomplished and a great day sail this was one fine June weekend.
See you in the bay!