Heading Out On Another Adventure

Days 1-2, Wednesday, and Thursday, September 28, 29, 2016

(The week before we left on this trip, our son Scott and I traveled to Maine to attend a class at the Wooden Boat School.  We spent the week building a 17 foot kayak.  The weather here is so bad that I have yet to take pictures so I have included pictures of Maine and the school in this blog.)

The components for the kayak hull

Janine and I are on another trip.  This one promises to be an interesting one.  An overview of our goal:

          Travel to the Chesapeake Bay and sail with 3 people on another boat for about 5 days.  Janine will return to Ohio.  I will stay in the Annapolis area to attend the boat show.  On Oct 11, I will sail south to Hampton VA. On Oct 17, I will join a group of boaters traveling down the Intracoastal Waterway for Florida.  I will leave the group around December 1 in St Augustine Fl.

We left Somerset at 6:00 Wednesday morning and traveled to Parkersburg WV where we dropped off our car at the home of one of the folks with whom we will be sailing on the Chesapeake.  At the end of that portion of the trip, Janine will ride back with them, pick up the car and head back to Somerset.

Hull pieces "sewn" together with copper wire.

We had an uneventful trip to Annapolis.  We had planned to launch our boat and store our truck and trailer at a marina on Macaphe river, but when I called them to confirm our reservation, she informed me that it would be $10.00 a day storage fee making the total 2 month bill $600.00.  I tried another marina and their fee was $20.00 per day.  I finally found Sandy Point State Park which has a huge set of boat launch ramps and a biggest boat parking lot that I have ever seen.  The fee to launch is covered by the $3.00 entrance fee and we could leave the truck and trailer for an extended period of time for nothing. 

We arrived at around 4:00 and set out stepping the mast and rigging the boat.  Not long after we got the mast up it started to rain and the winds began to blow with gusto.  Our friend, Jim Philpott, who has a 39 foot Bristol boat moored in Annapolis, came over to help us.  With the weather turning sour and darkness approaching, we decided to forgo the rigging and launch unto the following day. 

Hull ready for first coast of epoxy on the inside

We left the park and headed to the hard to find Cantlers Restaurant where we enjoyed picking Chesapeake Bay crabs for dinner.  Jim then brought us back to the park where we were met by a friendly park ranger who was not sure about what we were up to. We explained our situation and he reluctantly agreed that we could stay on the boat.  The park closes at dark except for boaters and fishermen.  We definitely met one of those criterion. 

Boat almost finished and ready to head home.

The wind blew had and the torrential rain pounded us all night long.  In the morning, I checked the radar and realized that we were in for a long stormy haul.  We were in the throes of a huge tropical storm that reached all the way from the southern tip of Florida to well north of our location.

I decided to check with the folks at the park office regarding our stay on the boat and was informed by a nice supervisor that there was no storage of boats allowed in the park and as long as our boat was on the trailer, we were technically storing the boat and we in violation of the rules.  The harbor of the park is considered a safe harbor of refuge so we could tie up to one of their docks and stay as long and we needed and the truck and trailer would not be considered as being stored. We had not planned to put the boat into the water until the wind and rain subsided, but!

How the finished boat will look

We moved the truck and trailer near a grove of bamboo that shielded us somewhat from the wind and finished rigging the boat.  Our launch was really uneventful.  We secured the boat soundly and prepared to an extended stay.  Winds were blowing 25 knots gusting to 35.  The weather service issued gale and small boat warnings so we were content to stay put.

Line of launch ramps at Sandy Point State Park

We unhooked the unstored truck from the unstored trailer and went into Annapolis where we spent the remainder of the afternoon lounging around on Jim’s beautiful boat.  At around 4:00, Barb and Bob Fish arrived from Parkersburg.  They will be staying on and sailing with Jim on Little Star.  For dinner, the five of us drove into downtown Annapolis and ate at the wonderful McGarvey’s Restaurant, located near the center of the historic district.  Walking from the car, we had to walk around flood water in the streets from an extremely high tide. 

Where we spent the night as an unstored boat.

We returned to the boat at about 8:00 and were able to make it into bed at our accustomed cruising bed time of 9:00