Today was awesome. The combination of following seas and the tide pushing us enabled our fastest cruising day yet. At 5:30am we departed Great Oaks Harbor and pointed south for Norfolk VA. Although we didn’t quite reach Norfolk we sure had a successful day cruising.
The day started out calm but about three hours into the run the Chesapeake kicked up. Thankfully, we were going with the waves but we faced three foot waves with the occasional four footer. The boat’s high bow took on the waves with no issue and we kept our southerly bearing with a speed of 14-16knts.
After an hour or two of high waves the bay calmed down and eventually became completely flat. We certainly lucked out with weather since the southern Chesapeake is essentially the open ocean and was by far our biggest potential obstacle on the route to Florida.
We went somewhere around 112.5 nautical miles today not counting our deviations from the bay channel to refuel.
We ended cruising at approximately 5pm and entered Deltaville Marina for the night ending 11.5 straight hours of motoring. We went for a swim in the marinas pool, took hot showers and walked to a local store for ice cream.
Deltaville is a beautiful spot on the Chesapeake. And, although we spent most of the day far from land in the channel, when we dove back into shore for fuel I was amazed at how pretty the shores of the Chesapeake are.
The goal for tomorrow is to finish the Chesapeake, dive into Norfolk VA, enter the Great Dismal Swamp and continue into North Carolina. The swamp looks breathtaking in pictures I’ve seen and I’ve been looking forward to it for a while.
Highlight of the day: Someone recognizing the boat from Facebook and coming over to talk with us about the trip. Thanks for chatting Michael!
For dinner we reluctantly settled on another mountain house freeze dried meal (we definitely need a proper dinner soon).
Fingers crossed for a calm Chesapeake tomorrow as we finish up the southern most leg.
Hello Ross and Dad. I’m following your journey (from work). Are you running any solar to charge phones (3% battery in pic from day 4)? It would be cool to also see the dates of your entries. If y’all need anything while in the Norfolk/Dismal Swamp area, let me know. I’m in Virginia Beach.
Thanks for following! we’ve got two USB’s with our switch panel connected to the battery. The engine has an 18amp alternator so it the battery charges as we motor. I’ll add the dates, that’s a nice touch 👍
This is an exciting journey! Pulling for you to have great success.
Thanks!
So exciting to see how far you’ve gone! Best of luck on the rest of the journey, Ross!
Thank you!