Position           38:44.57N 076:16.00W

Date                1515 Monday 3 June 2013

Days run          36nm - 35nm over the ground

One of the features of the Chesapeake is that the further you go up the Bay the lower the salinity of the water.  That combined with the very muddy nature of the water means that it is neither possible nor sensible to run the water maker.  Taking on water therefore becomes a matter for careful planning.  Before leaving Solomons Island we were able fill up by taking on 450 litres, half a tank, at the Solomons Yacht Centre.

Initially we sailed, hard on the wind and tacked back and forth across the Chesapeake from west to east shore and back again but eventually we bowed to the inevitable and resorted to motoring up the Chopatank River, on the eastern shore, it seemed to go on for ever, well at least 11 nm, before we found the anchorage and dropped the hook in the middle.

One of the advantages of being one of the larger boats on the rally was that we got to be the centre boat for the raft up that followed.  With Dovka, Sid and Rebecca Shaw and Blue Heron, Bob and Jane Ellen Frantz, fresh from a circumnavigation on the one side and Red Admiral, Mike and Margot McConnell, on the other we produced a fine raft.  Mike McConnell showed off his skills as a piper and I perforce joined in with some tunes.  The challenge of tuning to each other was too much for either of us so we played tune and tune about.  Mike and Margot were off to Scotland shortly and have arranged a cruise through the Caledonian Canal and the Great Glen and are then renting a motorcycle to tour north of Edinburgh.