CT to NC Day 8
North Beach, MD to Solomons, MD
We left Herrington Harbour Marina this morning at 0800. Forecast for the day South winds 5-10 knots with 1 to 2 seas.
Once out into Chesapeake Bay things were great... about 30 minutes into the day the wind picked up blowing over 20 knots from the SW... waves picked up quickly and soon we had a short 3 foot chop... makes for a very uncomfortable ride and we were getting spray from the waves on the pilot house windows.
A straight shot course was just not happening today... we turned to the SW directly into the waves and headed toward the shore to run as close as possible to shoreline in the lee of the land. Once we got a mile or so off the shoreline the waves had subsided to less than 1 foot... this was much more comfortable... we continued south along the shoreline until we reached Cove Point LNG Terminal restricted area and we had to move off the shoreline and round Cove Point and once again we had the SW winds directly on our bow... luckily we did not have far to go after this. Only a few miles to our destination Solomons, MD.
We had called and reserved a slip at Calvert's Marina... we arrived at approximately 1300 and were securely docked with power on at 1315. Our position tonight is
N38°19.929', W076°27.429'. We traveled today for 5 hours and 15 minutes covering 33.3 nautical miles averaging 6.35 knots.
There were actually a couple of transient sailboats on the dock with us that are heading south... Other cruisers finally!