However after spending a miserable night at Doziers, we looked at the longer range forcast and decided that if we didn’t leave we would be stuck there for 4-5 days with winds of 25kn from the south (where we were heading) and wave chop of 3-4 feet. Doziers is a lovely marina in a beautiful setting but when the wind changed direction in the middle of the night it became very noisy and bumpy even though we were tied up!! Mary couldn’t sleep in the forecabin and at ~1.30am I found her in the salon reading the Herald online. Later she went to sleep there and said it was much better. Me, I slept like a log!!

So, we bit the bullet and headed out and had a fantastic run south, the wind and waves were from behind us and we were “surfing” at times!! I have been cruising at around 1200rpm doing 8-9kn but we were hitting speeds of 11.5 at times.

It was as hot as hades with a cloudless sky and the sun beating down upon us. It feels strange to be heading towards the equator with the sun rising on my left and setting on my right!

The Chesapeake bay is a vast expanse of water and at time we were unable to see land anywhere except to one side. Norfolk harbour is absolutely massive and houses the world’s largest naval installation. Home port for aircraft carriers, Destroyers, Cruisers, Frigates and Nuclear submarimes. It was quite interesting to see all the navy vessels behind massive floating booms and gates!

So, here we are at Mile Zero of the Intracoastal waterway. The weather is good.

Tomorrow we’re off early again – this is the norm; up early for a first light departure. Visitors, be prepared

Did have a bit of a scare this morning when I couldn’t get the starboard engine to start It was as dead as a doornail. So put on my thinking cap, mentally ran through some diagnostics and found that the engine was still in gear!!! It won’t start unless it’s in neutral. We live and learn:)

Oh yes, changed my very first diesel fuel filters today!! took about 20 minutes, but next time it’ll be more like 5 minutes, now that ive done it once

So it was another lovely day out on the Chesapeake and again we are absolutely blown away by the size of it. For an awful long time we seem to only have land on one side – the water just seems to go on forever.

We also crossed from Maryland into Virginia.

On our arrival and before heading in to the marina, the conditions were so perfect that we took some time out for me to practice with the controls again. So it was forward, reverse, turn left, turn right, pirouette on the spot, come to a stop etc etc. I’m getting the hang of it but that’s of course with no other boats around! In the marina, with heaps of other boats around it’ll be another story! And who knows what the other boats watching must have thought!!

Eventually we came in through a very narrow channel and Lance did a great job of bringing us up to the dock. Anyway we are tied up tonight in another lovely marina – Dozier Yacht Cente at Deltaville. It’s a lovely place and we were even able to take a courtesy car into town a couple of miles away. The first car was a 19 something Ford Buick – see photo. I gave up trying to find out how to move the seat forward and was then trying to get it started – an automatic with the shift stick on the steering wheel. Anyway nothing I did could get it started so I thought we must be missing something obvious. Not so – it had a flat battery! So next car was a very old Mercedes station wagon. Well it got us there and back for free. And that’s what counts!

Not sure about tomorrow – windier and more waves. We’ll see in the morning but we could be here for a few days. But it’s a lovely place and very pretty surroundings. The name of the big launch tied up next to us tonight says it all “It could be worse”!

Had a great day travelling down the Chesapeake Bay which is a huge expanse of water. To put the size of this bay into perspective for all the Kiwis – it is as long as the distance from Auckland to the Bay of Islands!!!

Of course we had to backtrack once or twice as we ran into a minefield or 2!! Well, not actually a minefield but areas of intensive crab harvesting (Maryland is famous for the crabs). The areas were just strewn with crab pots and I didn’t want to risk getting their lines entangled in my props!!! So, sometimes the direct line from A to B is not necessarily the shortest. Lesson learned

Amanzi performed beautifully and I just loved the throaty purr of my twin puppies, Apollo and Zeus! At 1200 rpm I was puttering along at 8.5 to 9 knots. Passed many sailboats motoring down

I just have to mention a few people/businesses that have provided fantastic service. First, there’s Andy of Dockcall who has been our engineer. But he has been more than an engineer!! He has been a tutor, a mentor, an easy to communicate with person who spent a lot of time helping me with various things – going over the engines and taking us out for our first run yesterday, helping with the anchor chain and much more – thanks, Andy.

Then there’s Joe at Westmarine, Baltimore who was great at organising bits and pieces (new chart chips, Epirb, Anchor chain, Spot, and more) that I needed for Amanzi – Thanks Joe!!

Of course, no trip is complete without some drama!! Coming to Solomons Island, we had been fully intending to anchor out but this was not to be. Firstly, Mary had got used to the finger tip (hynautic) control of the throttles and gear shifts of the boat she was training on during her 2-day course and so had some difficulty with the very stiff, manual cable shifters. So, out we went for her to practice in open water. All went well with that.

Then I decided to test out the anchor system that I only got installed yesterday and found that I could drop the anchor and chain without a problem but the winch wouldn’t release the chain on retrieval. Well, I didn’t see my way clear to anchoring and then having to lift up 45 lbs of anchor and probably 60-100 lbs (yes, I’ve Americanised my measures) using the old fashioned method of back breaking hand by hand haul in!! So we’re in a marina

Here are some photos – from sunrise in Baltimore to sunset in Solomons Island: