Crew Log for October 29th, 2022
Trip Summary:
Solomon Island, Maryland to Reedville, Virginia
Trip Distance of 42.1 NM, Total Distance To-Date of 1,486.2 NM
Departed at 08h15 hours and arrived at 16h00 hours
I have never tested my hypothesis, but I expect if I were to ask, “Who is the most competitive person on Elizabeth M?”, most people would guess wrong. While arguably I have a better sense of direction than Judy, she is by far the better technical sailor. And she is very competitive. If there is another boat within eyesight of us, there is a constant sound of sails being trimmed as I take up my sloth-like position behind the helm to make sure “Auto” does his job.
After a wonderfully peaceful night on anchor, we woke to another fantastic sailboat day. I was happy we got a good night’s sleep since there were a lot of boats headed the same way we were, which meant, it was going to be a day of racing. As we left the anchorage, there were 4 – 5 boats ahead of us we had to try and catch, and several behind us we had to stay ahead of. Shortly into the sail, Judy yells, “SEVEN AND CHANGE”, her new favorite expression, to let me know the boat was going over 7 knots. The race was on!
We were again travelling with That’s It and Bleue Jazz. Onalee and Teliki had stayed behind in Solomon Island so Onalee could sort out an electrical issue. We were however, happy to hear later that morning that it was an easy fix and they were on their way again.
It occurred to me that over the last 2 days, we had been sailing for 16 hours, at SEVEN AND CHANGE, due south. Right on cue Judy yells, PELICAN, as it flew across the boat and we saw another one a short time later in the water. We were indeed getting south and we were both looking forward to our new scenery and new wildlife.
My excitement of moving along at seven and change and seeing pelicans, was dampened by the thought that something was wrong with our VHF radio. All day, the radio was squawking with distorted transmissions that we couldn’t decipher at all. Aside from being really annoying, it was potentially dangerous since the only way we could tolerate it was to turn the radio down. We did a radio check a couple of times and there didn’t seem to be a problem.
I asked Andre about it when we arrived at the anchorage and he was complaining about the same thing. It turned out, we were picking up radio traffic from Norfolk, which is home to the US Navy and a busy commercial shipping port. It is also the staging point for pleasure boats headed south either down the ICW or on the outside. As a result, there is a lot of radio chatter and from this distance, most of it was gibberish. Squelch.
We wound our way up Cockrell Creek to the anchorage in Reedville. It didn’t really hit me at the time, but we had left Maryland and were now in the State of Virginia. There is a large fishing fleet in Reedville and a fish plant, which reportedly doesn’t smell very good, although we didn’t experience that. They fish for Atlantic menhaden, an oily fish found in Atlantic Coastal waters.
I had never heard of menhaden, but they are said to be one of the most important fish in the ocean. They are an important food source for ospreys, eagles, whales, porpoises and many other species. They are also ground into oil rich dietary and pet food supplements as well as commercial fertilizer. Fortunately for us, it either was not menhaden season, or we were upwind enough to avoid the smell from the plant a short distance down Cockrell Creek from where we anchored.
We dinghied into the local restaurant to have supper with the crews from That’s It, Bleue Jazz and another boat from Montreal, Vivere, crewed by Daniel and Joane. While we were the only anglophones at the table, they were very generous to include us in the conversation. I tried, unsuccessfully, to convince “Joyce” our server to hop on boat Bleue Jazz for the trip to the Bahamas with Daniel who was solo sailing. She said it sounded lovely, but Daniel was still solo the next morning when we departed.
The restaurant was obviously very popular with the locals, which always is a good sign. I had to remind myself however, that I promised to avoid any conversations about politics. I didn’t ask why we were surrounded by TVs tuned to Fox News or ask a table of guests next to us, polishing off the last of several bottles of Trump wine, what they thought of the wine’s namesake.
One of my favorite meals has been a blue cheese salad with a crab cake. The salad is essentially a small head of iceberg lettuce, chopped in half and sprinkled with bacon and blue cheese. After you get over the feeling that you have been served something that resembles a round bale of silage, it’s a very good suppertime meal and you don’t spend the rest of the night chewing tums.
Fortunately we remembered to turn our anchor light on when we left for supper and to bring our spot light, since it was a very dark evening.
We had a short hop to Deltaville in the morning so we decided to wait until 10h00 before departing.
But more about that, next time.
Additional Photos:
Comments