Good ole US of A - possibly

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Tue 15 May 2012 13:02
37:00.53N 76:14.03W

Tuesday 15th May

Its 0700 Eastern US time and as far as we know we are in the United States -
hard to tell as it is hissing down with rain and the thunder has just
started up again! We have gone through the tunnel/bridge crossing Hampton
Roads, the entry into the Chesapeake and can just see the buoy (boo-ee as
they say here) in front and nothing more, so don't expect a panorama of the
harbours! We are dressed in the full sailing-in-the-summer kit:
waterproof top and bottoms, thermal top, sailing wellies (Rob just
discovered he has been walking around in my second pair for two days which I
had abandoned [they've lost all grip - he concurs!] in favour of my leather
ones, which for the first time in five years finally feel comfortably worn
in and no longer give me blisters, only for the soles to develop a 3"flap,
equally lethal), neck warmers and woolly hats....

Yesterday was more of the same, we quietly sailed up towards the inlet
entrance in fairly nice weather (none of the nasties suggested by Chris have
actually developed - but he didn't mention this glorious weather change!).
Unfortunately we still had considerably rolly seas making me more and more
irritable as I wrestled with the fish to turn it into curry and soup, and
staggered and clonked from side to side in the galley. I am now down to
onions, potatoes, carrots and a few bits of lurking veg not looking in the
first flush of youth - the fresh produce didn't really survive very well
(nothing like as good as the wonderful stuff we were still eating well after
our arrival from the Canaries last winter). And sadly Little Tunney is not
such an exciting fish to eat - good for soup though.

The seas have changed completely: positively a nice East Coast UK colour
scheme - grey/green and opaque, and the water temperature has dropped to
21.5 degrees C.

And we still couldn't see actual ground - plenty of high rise buildings
could be seen through the binoculars. I think we had imagined approaching
this great big continent that it would look seriously impressive with grand
cliffs or something. If Columbus had been arriving today he'd have sailed
straight into it with its current visibility and lack of mountains and Rob
thinks that if had been as miserable as this, the Pilgrim Fathers would have
turned round and headed straight back home.

During the night I had some interesting encounters: a ship coming down our
rhumb line again but this one decided to change direction across our already
altered path in the final 15 minutes before impact (according to the AIS) -
thanks very much. And suddenly, out of nowhere whilst I was concentrating
on avoiding this, I found some sort of military/coastguard vessel had
materialised on our starboard side which was very worrying, obviously it
doesn't show on the AIS. With hindsight we think it was the South Pilot
vessel which later radioed us for confirmation of our intentions, checking
us out first.

Rob had a more entertaining watch, not many ships but he was tracking
another yacht, Curlew which had been sailing around ahead of us during the
day/evening presumably like us trying to time his entry into the Chesapeake
in the daylight. He was charging around at great speed unfortunately
getting into all sorts of problems with regard to other fast moving craft,
and Rob watched as he changed direction many times to avoid collisions.
Later he was ahead of us entering the TSS but chose to take the deep water
channel (only allowed for really massive craft, even the 800 ft cargo ships
weren't using it) to then have to be radioed "for your information" by the
huge cruise ship immediately behind him as they both approached the squeeze
point between the bridge heads! He apparently hadn't noticed the huge ship
a mere half mile behind....

We are also amazed by the coastguards' radio techniques out here. Being
used to the beautiful diction of our UK equivalents, out here they seem to
pick coastguards by the ability to churn out the information at
incomprehensible speed - what has happened to that lovely American drawl?
Heaven help us if we ever need real information from them. Luckily weather
information is given out over local MW radios in a loop, also with the
facility to draw your attention by an alarm to any changes in the
information and particularly, to squall information (which can tell you very
accurately that in 20 minutes you will be hit by an almighty blast, or so
Scott-Free tells us) - and all it is, is a tiny transistor radio costing $20
(and Chris and Steve very kindly passed theirs on).

So we are galloping towards our destination which is a private condominium
dock very kindly offered to us by Greta and Gary, 30 miles into the
Chesapeake on the Elizabeth River. Greta is the Port Officer for the OCC
(Ocean Cruising Club) here and has been a star: emailing us all sorts of
comforting emails and as we speak, contacting on our behalf the
representative for our charger/inverter. This has unfortunately failed -
since we only replaced this expensive piece of equipment in Antigua, the
good news is it is well covered by warranty. But the utter horror apart
from no mains battery charger, is that without the inverter Rob can only get
back to his special coffee consumption by turning on the generator for every
espresso he makes - possibly a little extravagant!

So I am feeling the need to get a little tidying up done (we have four beds
to dismantle to start off with having prepared the forepeak, and the two
pilot berths on each side of the saloon depending on which tack [ie which
side the boat is leaning] we are on) - especially as the rain is still
teeming down and there is nothing to see! Just you carry on Rob in that
nice soggy cockpit....