The Solomons

Where did we leave you on the Roxanne and Josh adventure.... ah yes in Deltaville. Well the Ship's Tailor delivered our sail cover first thing in the morning. Once Josh and I finally figured out how to get it on, we were off....finally. As we rounded Windmill point, which put us in the Chesapeake bay we say a pod of dolphins. I don't care how many times I see them I still love it.

We had some crazy winds, 25 knots. Luckily it was coming from behind us. So we were surfing the 4-5 foot waves. However once the tide starting going out, the waves got higher. At one point Josh has at the helm and I was in the companion way looking back at him. I could have sworn he was standing in front of a wall of water. *Attention* boating terms- we were going so fast at some point we were going 8 to 11 knots on the waves, max hull speed is 7.5knots.

We were rolling so much we actually put on our lifejackets and harnesses. I was very glad that I had mine on when I went up to the mast to pull down the main. That's a flaw on our boat. Not only do I have to go to the mast, I have to climb the mast to bring the main down. I don't think it's very safe.

After rolling and surfing and hanging on for dear life, we pulled up the Patuxent River to the Solomons. As we were coming in there were fighter jets landing over head. Man are those things loud. Hoewever the coolest flying thing we've seen yet was the "plopter", as Josh calls it. It's a thing in the sky (I don't know exactly what to call it) that has 2 propellers like a plane but then the propellers rotate like a helicopter. Now that's CRAZY!!

Solomons Island is actually not an island. It's 2 creeks with hundreds of boats. After having spent a good chunk of change on the enclosure, we decided to anchor. Well we haven't really been anchoring much, we've really only done it twice, and we certainly haven't been anchoring around other boats it tight little creeks. So there we were about to have another adventure!

Well we going to try and anchor behind the mooring field near all the other boats. At which point we kinda got our hand signals (the cute little signs you to eachother because you can't hear anything). I understood "drop the anchor", he meant "you really want to drop the anchor here?!!!". Anyone want to guess what happened after. I came running to the middle of the boat so I could kinda hear him. And we both spoke "nicely" to eachother. (For those non-sailors, on the water even thought Josh and I can't hear eachother speak when one's at the front and the other's at the back, it doesn't mean that everyone around can't hear you. Sounds travel extremely well over water.) We finally came to an agreement, nicely of course, to pick up the anchor and go elsewhere.

We finally got hooked in a nice little bay for the night. The weather wasn't looking good for Wednesday, more 25 knot winds, and our nerves had had enough of those for a while. We decided to stay put and leave on Thursday for Annapolis. Well we slept in, had a big breakfast, then turned on the weather. It had changed, they were only calling for 10-15 knot winds. It would have been a perfect sail. But it was too late to leave. This is an important for the "what if" moment that happens later Thursday. That story next in "THE STUPID STORM"

Stay tuned.....