Saturday 25 May, Passage to USA day 9: Round Cape Hatteras and half way up the Chesapeake Bay towards Annapolis.
Midnight finds us on a calm upwind sail in 12kts of wind, parallel to Hatteras Island 5nm to our west. It’s a welcomed peace after the earlier excitement. Plus we have phone signal, welcoming us back to the human world!
The water temperature is down to 21degC, bbbrrrr. The night is very chilly and we zip up all the sides of the cockpit tent, very glad to have it.
Towards 4am wind gradually dies to nothing (4kts) and Cloudy Bay is bobbing around at 1.5kts, shuddering her rig as if saying “come on, let’s get moving!”. Engine comes on and we do move on. The sea is mirror-like flat, almost feels surreal after the ocean swell we had so far. Or maybe the quick change makes it feel that way.
Just before sunrise the sky turns a lovely yellow, then orange, and eventually we watch a beautiful sunrise over a bright red horizon. It’s been a long time since we had one of those. Magic.
By 6am the wind comes around and we can sail again. A very slow upwind sail in only 7kts of wind, along Virginia coast in 20m of water. As the morning progresses the wind remains light but swings around and we are on a beam reach. Not making much progress though as the sloppy waves are stopping us dead and Cloudy Bay doesn’t seem to build up momentum to keep any speed. They are not actual waves, just chaotic lumps banging our sails and throwing us all over the place.
But we have GSM signal to console us. Bliss! First thing, we need to make ourselves legal in USA waters so we start making phone calls to various CBP numbers to inquire on the procedure. We get transferred from one CBP office to another without anyone telling us something specific. Seven phone calls later and no action plan, it is time for a different approach. And we start calling various marinas at the entrance into the Chesapeake Bay to inquire on dock availability so that we can come and check in. Unanimous reply: no availability. Hm…what next? Can we even go up the Chesapeake without having checked in? We call CBP Orlando again and they pass us to CBP Baltimore airport who pass us to CBP somewhere else. And sounds like we can check in up in Annapolis, but they are too busy right now to explain the procedure to us and we have to call again tomorrow morning. At least now we have a plan: we go straight to Annapolis where we know we can anchor. We haven’t been there with Cloudy Bay, and it’s a lovely town.
Now that we know where we are going, we revert our attention to these lumps that are making Cloudy Bay so slow. Thinking that this might be a phenomenon in this shallow water close to the shore, we switch on the engine and motor out to deeper sea where hopefully we can resume a decent sailing. Waste of time and diesel, the sea is just as lumpy. So engine off, steer back towards where we need to go and resume the bumpy sailing.
This sail along the coast, although only 110nm, felt a bit long due to the slow speed. But it was a welcome break after all the excitement we had last night. We see lots of people and cars on the beach around Kitty Hawk and later in the day we learn it is the Memorial holiday weekend, so everybody must be out enjoying the beautiful weather.
Mid-afternoon the wind shifts again and increases. We pole out the genoa, sailing passed Oceana and towards the mouth of the Chesapeake. At first, the genoa is struggling to keep full in the light wind. Then as the wind gradually builds we are getting more stable and end up having a very fast run into Chesapeake.
Maybe a bit too fast, we are thinking, as we look at the traffic separation lanes in and out of the river. Boats are lining up from all directions, and these are big boys! No playing around with them. So taking advantage of our speed and the favorable current, we are zipping along across the TSS, dodging a couple of tankers.
The little extra attention we have to spare goes towards enjoying the magical golden light before sunset, when the glow over the water and over Cloudy Bay is so beautiful.
Once in the Chesapeake Bay, it’s like a different world. We almost forgot how nice it is to be sailing in the calm waters of the river with no Atlantic swell (although we very well remember how rough it can get too!). With the 22-25kts wind behind us we are flying along at a boat speed of 9+kts, quite often touching 10+kts. And we enjoy the very fast ride till after sunset.
It is then when our brains start working overtime on scenarios of what could go wrong now that we no longer are in the vast, deep, open sea. Floating debris and logs, fishing floats, shoals… Hm, maybe we are going too fast. And to top things up, an electrical storm starts developing in front of us.
We would feel a lot better if we reduce speed, so we furl away the mainsail and continue with poled out genoa only, keeping a boat speed of 8.5kts. That feels safer and certainly easier to wiggle up the river without the need to gybe and re-gybe the mainsail.
As the night settles it feels very cold despite the extra layer of clothes we already accessorized ourselves with. So we zip up all sides to our extra room (the cockpit tent) and get cozy inside, with a warm cup of tea.
We need to be extra cautious navigating up the river, and we set waypoints only on marked channels (thanks Ray for the warning on crab pots).
And so we sail into the pitch black night, with eyes glued to the chart plotter and on other vessels navigation lights.
