Solomons Harbor Marina - at a dock, Last Day

Actually there are several anchorages nearby - okay in nice weather

Another cold, windy day. The temp topped out at 60 with no sun at all - such rotten weather! Much of today was spent poring over weather forecasts trying to decide whether we head out Monday or not. We wanted a three day window to reach Hampton but there appears to only be two days of decent weather ahead of us. Since Wednesday turns rotten again, we have to make a dash for Hampton in two days. With that we concluded a formal, guaranteed contract with the local weatherman that the predicted two days of not so bad weather was actually going to happen. We agreed to a $1000 guarantee and so were satisfied.

For those interested, we consulted the NOAA marine coastal forecasts for Chesapeake Bay, grib wind predictions and current charts. One of the sections of the bay that can be very rough is passing by the mouth of Potomac River when the tide is coming in and the wind is out of the northwest (wind against tide). Since the Potomac runs from northwest to southeast, a northwest wind has the entire length of the river to build up wave action. So for tomorrow morning we expect a northwest wind with the tide (current) in the same direction - so there's no wind against tide problem, at least that's the theory.

Monday should be no problem (we hope) but Tuesday is problematic. A northwest wind is predicted of 10 to 15 but the most recent updates show a 20 kt wind - with the bay current going south (ebb), that should be okay. In fact, it should (in theory) be a good sail day going south (ha!). Somehow things seems to not turn out that way but we can hope. We made reservations at the Hampton City Marina at $1.25/ft per day with the third day free, a very reasonable rate. Now all we have to do is get there.