Chesapeake to back to Beautiful Beaufort

We eased our way back into cruising with a lovely short sail across the Chesapeake Bay to Solomons Island - we had been here before but it was certainly a lot colder. We spent a couple of nights at anchor and met some nice people around the happy hour bar - everyone was moving south.

Solomon Island - Beautiful

Rugged up in October on the Chesapeake

The northerly wind allowed us to press on down the bay and we made a stop in at Reedville. There were two reasons to call in at this cute small village which is a real fish town complete with fish processing plant. Firstly our friends Neil and Ley were staying at a friends house and had just heard that there lovely boat was to be written off after a collision with a fishing boat off Long Island - big hugs were required and alot of wine. Their story svcrystalblues.blogspot.com

On Walter and Mary's dock in Reedville

The other was I'm a Reed so to sail by Reedville without checking out if there was a family connection seemed silly. Actually we couldn't find a family connection to Capt Elijah Reed but my Uncle advises me all Reed's have the same DNA..... The town is really quite lovely so I'd be happy to claim it. Neil & Ley have been made very welcome here and that hospitality was extended to us with a dock for Askari and an invite to Halloween and what an amazing experience that was.

Sea Witches

Australians do Halloween....

At the maritime museum - the lady on the left was a jelly-fish

This small town is so perfectly laid out for kids to trick or treat in a safe environment that over 800 kids were brought into to town for the spectacle and the locals went to town to welcome them. It was such fun however there was a part of me that felt sad that it was obviously not safe for them to go out in their own neighbourhoods.

Look at the lines for treats!

I had a go giving out candy at Donna's house

After the fun of Halloween we enjoyed some lovely days exploring the village, meeting locals and getting Askari ready for the trip back to the Caribbean.

I wonder if Oyster Yachts might consider a new office here..... The logo looks about right

Sadly the morning came to move on and we got great winds to have a fantastic fast sail all the way to Norfolk Virginia, arriving a day ahead of schedule. We were welcomed by the OCC port officers, Gary & Greta, at their private dock that they make available just for OCC members right in the heart of historical Norfolk. Andrew has been monitoring the weather for our trip South for weeks and the day after we arrived there was an opening, we quickly got everything ready, provisioned and I even cooked the lasagne. We went over to Hampton with Gary and Greta to see off friends in the Salty Dawg Rally and thought we might be off too the next day.

We decided to get one last weather update the next morning and changed our minds. This is the joy of not being on a schedule. We stayed a few more days and got the chance to catch up with Fred & Tiffany in Portsmouth, checked out the USS Wisconsin and then grabbed a weather window to sail south around Cape Hatteress back to Beaufort, North Carolina exactly to the day we were there last year.

It was quite an exciting trip as the window was pretty tight, so we left the minute the squalls from one front ended, at about 4pm and set off into the dark with an amazing red sunset. We sailed in every wind direction as the winds clocked back and then arrived at Cape Lookout at 1am the following day just before the next front later that day. Then as we approached the south of the cape our depth sounder stopped reading. Beaufort, is a little complicated in the dark so we had planned to anchor in a bay at Cape Lookout we hadn't been to before. Entering an unknown bay in the middle of the night without a depth reading was pretty stressful but we got in and safely anchored and managed to get a little sleep before heading in at 6am next morning.

Arriving at Homer Smiths we were given Shrimp and had one of the best lunches ever......

You can't beat Homer Smith's Shrimp