Solomons to Fishing Bay, Piankatank River

Long and adventurous day. We all stuck to the plan and were up and out at 7am. It was a quiet ride out the creek and to the mouth of the Patuxent River. We hoisted the main before leaving the river and the jib soon after as the SWS wind would carry both. Brunelle decided to go inside the PROHIBITED AREA (the Navy target range just south of the PAX Navy base) but were approached by a Navy patrol RIB and asked to head east at least 3/4 of a mile away from the target area. We obviously obliged! We then noticed that there was much air activity around including several planes dragging drones. We hoped to witness a hit, we DESERVED IT, having gone off course for them! No such luck. We did see one drone detach from its "mother", but we were too far away by that time to see if it actually hit a target. Shortly after leaving the target area, we passed another Navy craft, this one on the water.

Next we were aware of a lot of radio buzz about a submarine heading for Annapolis,....well we were right in the path of the approaching sub! Quite a thrill to watch it ghost by with two CG boats escorting it. John (Andiamo) radioed us right after their confrontation with the CG "gunboat", "So what's the entertainment going to be this afternoon!" We did pass several tugs with tows, but the best was a container ship the MSC Victoria whose AIS statistics listed her length in nautical miles!! You know you are big when your length is in NM, even if it was only .175nm (1,063ft....thank you iPhone app of conversions).

We had set a goal of 60nm for the day so we all decided to maintain 6kts over the course of the day. That meant that we all alternated between sailing and motor sailing. During the early afternoon, Glen (Sevilla) radioed that he was worried about a strange sound his engine was making. We all took a stab at radio diagnosis, but he decided he ought to have a mechanic look at it. Well we were headed for Jackson Bay on the south side of Deltaville, and the Deltaville Marina had good mechanics, so we were feeling pretty good. Then for no apparent reason, Brunelle's GPS decided to crap out. The chart plotter still showed the map, but we were no longer on it, but worse yet, the autopilot was defunct also! We actually had to steer! I felt sorry for Andiamo, who was right behind us, if they were trying to follow us; my course was just slightly erratic, especially as I was trying to use the iPad Navionics app to steer by. It kept turning off on me if I got too confident and didn't tweak it often enough. Well, long story short, just as we were about to enter the very tight and shallow channel into Jackson Bay, our GPS started to work and within minutes, Glen called to sheepishly explain that he had inadvertently hit the blower button and that was the mysterious engine noise. ALL PROBLEMS SOLVED, ... for today. Tomorrow we hope to make it all the way to Mile Marker "0" on the ICW, in the Norfolk/Portsmouth area.
~~~_/)~~~M&D

L to R, top : The Navy patrol boat and our three companions wait for us to head outside the target range., The CG Cutter Seahorse conversing with Andiamo, who was getting too close to the submarine, Sevilla passes by the Naval Warship without incident.
L to R bottom: Andiamo bow to bow with the CG gun boat with the submarine in the background. The mother ship with her drone. The LONG container ship--measured in miles!

No sunset this evening, ...it was spectacular, but we were running around in the dinghy checking on our "flock" of snowbirds and forgot to bring the camera. This cloud formation was more spectacular than it appears,... just part of a beautiful day!