May 11. 2019 – We got up early, as the boat swung with the early morning wakes of the watermen leaving to tend to their crab-pots. It was pretty calm, although the wind had shifted overnight, meaning that we’d be going into the waves on the day’s trip up the bay.
The forecast was now calling for a Small Craft Advisory later, with gusty winds and higher waves, so we decided to get an early start as well.
The water was very smooth and it was easy to pick out the crab-pots as we started up the bay. We headed farther offshore, so the C-pPM (crab-pots per mile) factor was lower, and the waves and wind continued to be very benign. We were hailed by another Looper boat, who was paralleling our track, commenting on the apparent discrepancy between the forecast and what we were seeing on the water. We were a fraction faster than they were, and as we each chose our path up the Bay, we got further and further apart. We noticed on the AIS that a boat was coming up behind us at 30 knots, and were surprised upon querying its data that it was a big Army Corps of Engineer dredge boat, a catamaran. He was nice enough to give us some separation, but his wake turned out to be minimal.
Then, just after 11 o’clock, the forecasters were vindicated, as the winds picked up, and the waves ahead of us began to stack up. Pretty soon we were seeing the 3-footers they had predicted, and occasionally a bigger one. Chantale went below to retrieve her latest birthday present, stabilized binoculars, which she declared to to be worth the pretty penny they had commanded. She was easily able to pick out details of markers and other boats, despite the rough conditions.
Clang!
We were hitting the waves sufficiently hard that the bell on the sundeck was occasionally ringing, and spray was coming up all the way on the flybridge enclosure. There were quite a few fishing boats out, and as the conditions worsened, they began to head for home. When we had one last short leg before we turned into the Patuxent River, Ben spooled up the turbos (for the engines’ health it’s good to run them hard under load periodically after lengthy periods of slow going) and gave the boat and drive-train a good workout for 20 minutes. As we got into the river, the conditions improved, and soon we were pulling into the Naval Air Station marina.
A number of other local boaters helped us dock, and we look forward to probably taking Sunday off from travel, as rain and more windy conditions are in the forecast.