May 14, 2019 – Alright, enough of this patience thing, let’s go.
On Monday, we watched the weather, and while it wasn’t ideal, the winds were supposed to settle in the afternoon up in Herring Bay, and despite some lingering drizzle, we went ahead and kicked out of the Navy marina and made our way back out into the Bay.
Some big targets on radar were coming into the river. A tugboat, a fireboat with hoses running, and a security boat with flashing blue lights. And off to the south, what looked like a big beige apartment complex. Ahhh, they must have just cleared a big liquified natural gas tanker off the Cove Point LNG pier. Glad we didn’t get tangled up with that!
This is a file picture of an LNG tanker – they are humongous – we encountered one on the Bay on a trip to Solomons last summer. It took three tugboats to get it off the pier and headed down the bay. These things can move at 20 knots once they get moving, and it is pretty disconcerting to be able to see them from so far away; you definitely want to stay out of the way.
As we made our way up the Bay toward home, we could see that we were being paralleled by United 771, another Looper boat. We talked by radio, and found out that they were going to Herrington Harbour North as well, so maybe we’d get a chance to meet up.
The marina put us in a transient slip on our ‘home dock’, and except for facing the wrong way, it was kind of nice to come back home after our shakedown trip to Norfolk, for a couple final days of wrapping up details.
We met up for dinner with crews from United 771, Patriot, and Nepidea, and had a good chance to share insights and experiences so far.
We will probably head out on Saturday, so no new posts until then.