On The Nose

This is an all too familiar sight for Baxter and I on this trip.  It is our windex, located on the top of the mast.  It indicates which direction the wind is coming from.  The tab on the left and right represent the "no go" zone where you can't sail.  For the last 9 days, we have sailed about 350 miles and we have only had about 3 days where the wind wasn't directly on our nose. When we went north in the Chesapeake, the wind was from the north. When we went south - guess what direction the wind was from? Not that it matters - Mother Nature deals the cards and we play the game.

I digress...We headed to Urbanna, Va on Friday the 13th. It was one of the few days that we were going downwind.  We took full advantage and set the sails in a "wing-on-wing" configuration.  It was a gorgeous day and we even had a pod of dolphins escort us out of the Deltaville channel.  When we got to Urbanna, we walked around town, had dinner and meandered back to the boat.

The importance of a dinghy cannot be understated.  It is the only means of going from your sailboat anchored somewhere to land.  It is the family car.  With the leak in our dinghy floor, we managed to take advantage of our pontoons and make do.  It will need to be replaced, but we were able to get by on this trip.  Our little outboard motor is working well - all we needed was a floor to stand on.  Steve has a great Caribe dinghy but needed more work on his big 15hp motor. So, we set off back to Deltaville.

Looking at the forecast, there were thunderstorms predicted for the next 7 days. We planned to get an early start Sun a.m. and have the foulies ready on standby.