Tuesday 6 November: Herrington Harbor North – departure day, and admin before leaving.
Still raining, and we are reluctant to get out of bed when the alarm sounds. It’s just too cozy under our duvet with the boat heating on and rain pitter-pattering on the deck above. Over breakfast Glen watches & listens to Chris Parker’s weather forecast. It will be a daily routine from now on, to keep an eye on a good weather window for our transit to Bermuda.
We leave the marina today, as it’s going to be the last high water for several days. The tide range is only 0.4m but it’s the wind that has a huge effect. We need a strong southerly up the Chesapeake to increase the water enough for us to leave this harbor. And today is the last southerly wind for a while.
Not happy to be moving in this weather, but unless we want to stay here for another week and maybe wait for the snow, we have to exit this channel this afternoon.
So we top up on the water supply, tie down the dinghy, do three loads of laundry (looking forward to have only a couple of shorts and T-shirt’s to wash, not thick thermals and jackets!).
While waiting for tumble drier to finish, we call Turbulence sail loft in Grenada. They sent us a note with their findings after the Parasailor inspection. The sail itself is in good condition, no indication that it had ever been repaired. The only negative is discoloration on the lower half, particularly at the clew and tack, where the seam tape has been used. Which is aesthetics only. So our current though is we will make an offer for this Parasailor and hopefully it will be accepted.
We stop by Free State Yachts office to say our goodbyes to Liz and Roger. We missed Roger, he was out, but we gave Liz some good smothering hugs! 🙂 They have been of great help to us, receiving all our deliveries. And one more to receive still, after we are gone! For those that didn’t catch this before: Free State Yachts is the brokerage we purchased Cloudy Bay through, 2 1/2 years ago.
At mid-day we return the hire car. Good little car. After having it for three weeks, we feel like we owned it! Especially after we had to buy a new tyre! Luckily, they didn’t spot it had a new tyre fitted 🙂
Once all the things we need to do before departure are crossed off the list, we are ready to slip the mooring lines. The tide is nicely high, actually the highest we’ve had yet. And we have to be out by 3pm before the water level goes back down. Which Glen is quite twitchy about, considering we ran aground twice when we got in this marina 3 weeks ago. But no sign of Ray, we need to say our goodbyes to him too. It is a sad departure anyway as we got used to this place. And to leave without saying proper good bye to our very helpful friend would be devastating. He texts us to say he will be an hour… but Glen feels we cannot wait that long. The water is going down and we really have to leave… with tears in my eyes. Emotional and heavy hearten departure.
Slowly motoring through the channel, we see a constant 3m depth and we hold our breath when it drops to 2.7m. Last time we saw 2.5m quite a few times (we draw 2.5m!). No incidents now, and we are safely out. They must have dredged the channel, or the tide is exceptionally high.
Seeing we have enough water at the channel exit, we call Ray again. He will be back at the yard in 10 mins, so we immediately decide to make a U turn to see him, now that we know there is enough water. And few minutes later, we moor back to the dock where we left from half an hour ago. Perfect timing, Ray arrives at the same time and catches our lines! We say a proper good bye, click a few pictures, vouch to keep in touch and hope we will see each other again sometime. And above all, thank him for all his tremendous help and advice.
And now that we have lighter hearts, our second departure doesn’t seem as bad. Plus, we motor out with slight more confidence just following our previous track. Once out of the channel, we have our shortest sailing trip ever. As in get out of the channel, drop the anchor and stop the engine. The equivalent of pull over and stop the engine. And we remind ourselves this is the first time we have anchored for almost 6 weeks now!
Rain starts again, and we retire inside in the warmth to have lunch and relax a bit. Glen feels like a heavy weight has lifted off his shoulders. Not because the yard time is now over, the engine room is shut, tools packed away in their boxes, and we can start sailing again. But because he was concerned how are we going to get out of the marina without running aground again. Especially on a receding tide. All good now, no more worries. Till tomorrow, when we need to decide where we stop next. And then weather for Atlantic.
Very calm anchorage, and at sunset there was a beautiful orange glow in the sky over the horizon, topped up with a rainbow. Nice to see a horizon again, not just masts all around us.
We spend the evening looking at the charts, listening to the radio, and doing emails. Shocking, I know! I have nothing to write about on the “fixing things, and breaking some more in the process” theme. We are traveling again, to new adventures!