Category: Great Loop 19/20

May 12-13, 2019 – As the weather had continued to deteriorate on our way up to Pax River, on Sunday we decided to do something that we have not yet had the opportunity to do.

Sit still. Stay in port. Deliberately not move on. Even though we had somewhere we wanted to go. And could have pressed on. We sat. Watched the rain, caught up on some business online. Watched a movie. Chantale baked zuchini bread.

We will have many more unplanned opportunities to lay over, so this was good practice.

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.

May 10, 2019 – At the Rendezvous we told people that our status was minus 150 miles, since we had started the ‘wrong way’ on the route to travel from our home marina to Norfolk. We figured that we would have to backtrack to Herrington Harbour just to get back to zero, and then start our Loop from there.

But the consensus was that Norfolk should be our start point, and that when we we pulled out this morning, we’d be clocking positive miles toward completion. So, accordingly, today is really the first day of the journey. And after a great four days at the Rendezvous, we really now feel like members of the Fleet.

The marina began to empty out early, as boat after boat started up and maneuvered out into the Elizabeth River; we moved up our departure a little because winds were projected to kick up later in the day, so left just after 8.

Nice weather, mostly sunny, with winds out of the south. The radio was busy early, as there was a Navy submarine departing Hampton Roads naval base, and the array of security patrol craft keeping other craft from getting too close were pretty conspicuous, yet still had to approach a few vessels directly to escort them around the sub. We maneuvered to the side of the channel, and slowed to stay out of the excitement. We could see the sub through binoculars, but it was tough to get a very good shot.

We saw some more dolphins on the way up to our anchorage, but as before they didn’t come close enough to get good pictures. We shadowed another Looper boat for a while, but they pulled off into another river, and for now we have this little anchorage, on Antipoison Creek, all to ourselves.