TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

5-24-08

There was coffee, juice, and doughnuts in the Captain’s Lounge for us in the morning, so we didn’t have to fix our own breakfast – a real treat, but I probably didn’t need to eat a doughnut!  We chatted with Jack Dozier as we watched a Hatteras stuck on the wrong side of the red marker finally power off.  I did get a 30 minute speed walk in.  On my speed walk I passed clumps of honeysuckle and heard a quail calling “Bob White.”  I tried to whistle in return, but it was a poor attempt, even though the quail continued to call.  I plucked a branch of the honeysuckle and savored the drop of nectar from the stem of each blossom as I returned to the dock. We left the marina to fuel up at another nearby marina (Dozier’s didn’t sell fuel).  Then we got underway around 9:30.  We had a really nice sail down the Rappahannock.  I took the helm until we got close to the bridge, trying to get comfortable with sailing on a beat.  I wouldn’t say I was comfortable, but certainly more accustomed to it.  There were so many sailboats out on the river, and we decided that the Rappahannock must be the sailing capital of Virginia, as the river is wide and deep with few crab pots in the channel.  By the time we passed under the bridge and Bill was at the helm, the wind became squirrelly, and we tacked back and forth across the river the 3 miles to the Corrotoman River.  We took down the sails to enter the river, but it was a pretty straightforward run up to our chosen anchorage in Bell’s Creek.  It was a perfect anchorage, wide but protected, surrounded by lovely homes on high bluffs.  Since we hadn’t come that far, we arrived around 1:30, the third boat to drop anchor.  By five o’clock nine other boats had joined us, but there was plenty of room.  We cooked the steaks we’d bought in Deltaville along with baked potatoes, spinach salad, and sour-dough rolls – a gourmet meal complete with red wine.  It wasn’t long after dinner was over and the dishes washed that we climbed in the V-berth to read two pages in our books before turning out the light.