We left out of Poquoson, VA around 6am with the sun just creeping over the horizon. Motored out and navigated the very narrow channel until we hit the open Chesapeake Bay, which took about 45 minutes.
Once in the Bay, we cut the motor and made our way under sail for the duration of the 8 hour trip.
We had a decent breeze for most of the morning and practiced tacking and jibbing. We saw many, many dolphins, sea birds and even a Huge loggerhead turtle.
In the shipping channel, we encountered a hug freighter and surfed down the backside of her 6 foot high wake! Quite an experience for me. I did not know what to expect, but Spirited Away handled the wake/wave with aplomb.
Thanks to Dan, Bob and Troy for making this a fantastic day of sailing.
Notes on the Electric Motor:
The shore power was spotty at the old marina and when we arrived at the boat that morning, I had error lights flashing on the battery charger for the motor bank. After 2-days of charging, two batteries did not charge, one only partially charged and the 4th battery was about 75% charged. I was nervous and suggested we postpone the trip as I could not guarantee we would have propulsion from the electric motor. Bob and Dan said "Nonsense!" and we headed out anyway. We did have a small 1.5 horse outboard that Bob brought, but it looked like it had not been started in years. Over all we had about 2 hours of run time on the partially charged battery bank. We used about an hours worth of battery getting out of Poquoson and into the Bay. We kept the motor off for the majority of the trip and had enough juice to power our way into the marina. The motor has been working flawlessly, and I am hoping the shore power will be more consistent at the new marina.
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