We made it down to the Rhode River last night and anchored a little after midnight. After sitting for about three hours waiting out the fog in the early afternoon, and with more fog and high winds on the way, I decided to go ahead and make the trip down after dark.
I was afraid the fog might catch us, but it looks like we made it just in time. We were completely socked in this morning when we got up. It cleared up by mid morning, but then the winds picked up. It should blow pretty hard through Saturday, so this is a good place to sit and wait.
As the winds kick up, I'm watching the GPS to make sure we don't drag. After dragging a couple times over the last couple weeks, I'm really paranoid. We're in 9' of water, with about a half mile of fetch, and 150' of chain out. I put up the riding sail, which only helps a little, and my small anchor off the bow to help reduce sailing, or hunting, at anchor.
We shouldn't have any problem, but again, I'm still concerned. At this point, I can only drag to a soft shore, so it's not that big a deal. However, you never know how well the bottom will hold, and we should have 30 knot gusts tomorrow. It's actually gusting pretty close to that now. (Just looked at the chart, and it shows a soft bottom, and it looks like I'm slowly dragging, so I may move later when the wind dies down a bit. That way I can drag a little without getting into trouble. It's going to blow harder tomorrow, but not till the afternoon.)
Trip watch:
The leaves are changing, and the trip down the Sassafras was beautiful. It's really pretty here in the Rhode River too. There was little or no wind, and the waves, which started out less then one foot, became glassy like a lake after dark. On top of that, we had a full moon.
I passed a few large vessels, mostly barges, before dark, but after the sun went down, I only saw two more over a seven hour period, and one was a small boat, perhaps another sailboat, but too far away to really tell.
However, I did have another engine problem after passing under the Bay Bridge. An alarm sounded, which turned out to be overheating, so I shut her down, turned on the anchor light, and went below to check it out. With no wind, no traffic, and only a slight current, I just let her drift. -- we had a few miles if sea room all around and were in 40' of water, so anchoring wasn't an option.
Once I got the cover off, I could feel the heat, and thought she'd just overheated. However, once I got out my flashlight, I saw she'd thrown a belt. I quickly put the old one I'd changed out a few weeks ago back on, and got back underway.
Even though I was still worried about beating the fog, I kept the rpm's down just in case. I have one more spare, but I'm not sure where it is right now and didn't want to dig for it in the dark. I'll buy a few more before I leave this anchorage. I'll also try to figure out why they keep wearing out.
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