After the boatshow was done, we decided we would spend some time moving around the Chesapeake a little. We will have at least two more weeks here before it is considered safe to travel south below Cape Hatteras into the Hurricane zone. The cape requires a weather window to pass because it is open ocean and there are not any good places to go to land if needed. The closest stop for us is Beafort, North Carolina. Other cruising families are heading south a little sooner, if they are on smaller boats, because they can fit in the ICW, but our mast is too high for several of the bridges…

We had a lovely sail down from Baltimore to Annapolis and were pleasantly surprised that we could squeeze ourselves into the main anchorage (with the upcoming boatshow the anchorage was full!). The wind was very fickle but we still managed to put the sails up and do it mostly sailing. It meant that there were times we were only going 3 knots and then other times when we were going 11 knots. This day was also Thanksgiving and Halyna’s 13th birthday! So, while we were sailing and making our way to Annapolis, we were also baking a birthday cake and prepping Thanksgiving dinner. We picked up what we thought was…

The predicted storm rolled in and we stuck to the boat for 3 and a half days. Even with our previous experiences of having several days on the boat, we were all feeling antsy to get off by the time the winds settled. I think this was mostly because we didn’t have the outside of the boat to hang out on (unless we dressed up in our foul weather gear and wanted to play in the rain). Added to this restriction, was the oppressive feeling of not being able to see much out our windows! It was just gray. There was a shading film aded to our main deckhouse windows…