Cuttyhunk to Block Island to the Chesapeake Bay.

We left Cuttyhunk with Zia. As soon as sails were up it was a race. As always it was a close match and we basically had very similar speeds going to windward. Joe, on Zia, feels we are faster off the wind. I think he might be right but we will have to test that out. In any case, at the tip of Block Island we parted ways, Zia for Mystic and Cénou for Block. We got into Block before nightfall and left the next morning for Cape May, our next stop before the Chesapeake Bay.

Uneventful is the best description of our 36 hour trip. The weather we picked was the passage of a high pressure system forecasted to bring 10 to 15 knots from the north and then north-east. Since we were headed south-west, it looked perfect. The forecast was right on the wind direction but we never saw more than 10 knots of wind. The "screacher", our big head-sail that we use for when the wind is" abeam or aft of abeam", meaning coming from the side or behind, saw a lot of work. Still it took us 36 hours to do the 200 mile run. We motored for seven hours which is not bad considering the lack of wind.

The most exciting thing I saw in the dead calm and moonless night, about 50 miles offshore, was a very sizable log, or a tree, or maybe, but highly unlikely, a whale . It was close enough and nothing that would have been fun hitting, but the excitement quickly succumbed to the whirr of the engine. I got a lot of reading done (The Life of Pi) that night.

At about 3 AM the wind picked up and we sailed until 10 PM when we entered Cape May for the night. Memorable were the several hours at dawn and before sunset when the boat reached the speed of the wind at 9 knots, helped along by the long six foot swells of a hurricane that was disintegrating far offshore. Aside from that every knot of boat speed and course made good was hard won.

The sail (we actually motored again) up the Delaware Bay was the bore that it often is. The one main feature of the Bay is that it lacks any. So once the Delaware is entered there is no anchorage that is safe. If it gets rough, too bad, you have to keep going all along it's sixty miles or turn around. Although I have never seen the Bay rough, given the 1 to 2 knots of current it is easy to see why it has the reputation for creating "dramamine" moments.

So we are back where we came from. Some things need to be done, such as the windows, the screacher needs to be shortened by four inches, a new backing plate for the autopilot needs to be made and installed and then the usual maintenance stuff including going up the rig. We will get hauled out so that our new props can be changed for even newer props. It turns out the same yard that messed up our drives gave us bad advice on the props. At least the prop manufacturer, Max Prop and the yard are footing the bill.

In the meantime we are in a "federally approved" hurricane hole, as we wait to see what Ophelia does although right now it looks like it will be a none event for us.

That's about it. I hope to have some photos on the website in the next day or so.

Best to all

Anouck, Celine, Rike and Claude.