(What a hoot!)
My sail back to Cole's Point was uneventful, but just as I entered the marina a huge simultaneous crack of lightning and thunder exploded just overhead! I got to my slip and thanks to Pat from the marina who'd seen me coming in and had come over to help me dock in the impending storm, I was in the slip in short order and off to the shower before dinner. While I showered, the heavens opened and I had to run to the boat in a flashing downpour. I decided to wait out the rain with a fine rum drink in the boat before getting up to AC's for dinner, but after the second drink, the storm was still raging. So I put on my slicker and made another rainy dash back up to dinner. Thankfully the storm had abated by the time I'd had my fill, so I strolled back to the boat and slept like a baby after having sailed 10 hours that day.
The next day I took my time with breakfast and the paper and decided to just take a quick sail down to Kinsale - the place I took my first over-nighter to last season. The sail down was mostly downwind, which was pretty easy, but I made a mental note that I'd be doing alot of tacking on the way home. The only incident sailing to Kinsale was a badly bunged up left ankle suffered when I scampered down the companionway steps to get a cool beverage to go with my lunch only to find that the steps were slipping out from under my considerable bulk! When I hit bottom, my first thought was that I'd broken something, but other than some pain and nasty swelling everything seemed to work just fine.
The second major bit of excitement came after I sailed past Port Kinsale Marina up river to within sight of the Kinsale Harbor Marina. I'd visited this marina by land, but had never sailed this far up the Yeocomico, so I thought I'd take this opportunity. The trip up was fine, and the start of the trip back out was fine too, but after getting comfortable that I was all set on the return leg I suddenly found myself aground!!
It was actually not the nightmare I'd imagined it to be. The bottom was soft and the grounding was almost unnoticeable other than the fact that I'd stopped dead in the water. I followed all the standard procedures that I was able to follow (sails down, try to motor off from whence I'd come, etc.), but nothing worked. I radioed Port Kinsale and the guy that answered informed me that he was the only one around and couldn't leave, but he'd keep an eye out for a likely tow. He suggested that I try to hail a boat that might be passing and see if they could help.
Just as we ended our conversation, a sailboat came upriver and was willing to try, but after several attempts and his getting grounded once himself, he said he'd better give up and go get me a motor boat from his marina, Kinsale Harbor. So, for about an hour I ate a snack, iced my swollen ankle, talked to the guy at Port Kinsale on the radio a few times, and occasionally tried the engine to no avail, but mostly I just sat and waited.
To make a long story less long than I've already made it, about an hour later, I had three boats there to help me, and the second one got me off the sand bar. Two old quotes came to mind as I thanked everybody profusely: The first is that there are no better people in the world than those that you meet on the water, and these folks certainly proved that to be true. The second is that if you're sailing the Chesapeake and you haven't run aground, you haven't really sailed the Chesapeake, so I guess I've arrived!
As expected, the sail home was slow as I tacked upwind back and forth across the Potomac. So my "quick sail down to Kinsale" turned into a longer day than I'd had the day before, but the experience was worth it, and the good news was that I was rewarded with...
a beautiful sunset, and...
an equally beautiful moonrise.
I tend to wax overly poetic about sailing, but I can't describe how wonderful it was to be back out there again after all this time, despite the swollen ankle and the grounding. I'd do it all again - well, minus ankle & grounding parts - and plan to as soon as possible!
