On Friday morning we left Mears Point Marina early to get to our next destination before the day got too hot. We were bound for St. Michael's where we had already booked a transient slip, securing our slot to have air conditioning- a must when the temperature is forecast for 37/38 centigrade (100 F). Our first adventure of the day (and there were a few!) was to negotiate a narrow draw bridge that would take us from the Chester River into the Eastern Bay. We had to call the bridge tender 10 minutes before we arrived to give him time to stop the traffic and raise the bridge.
It took us 3 hours to sail from Kent Island to St. Michael's, the day was hot and still so once again there was no wind to sail. Below is a picture of the lighthouse as you enter the marina in St. Michael's.
Yesterday was a ridiculously hot day, too hot for an English girl and a baby....yes, I'm sure that everyone reading this back home in the UK is now tutting and thinking 'poor you..' but it really was quite unbearable. We spent a bit of time walking around the town and had lunch in a restaurant called The Great Pickle but we soon had to surrender to the heat and spent as much time as we could inside, lapping up the air conditioning. I still seemed to come down with some kind of heat stroke by the evening so an early night (or so we thought) was on the cards.
At around midnight Doug and I woke to a lightened sky and intense rocking...........from the West came the most monstrous storm that ravished Virginia and Maryland from South of Norfolk way up past Baltimore (that's pretty huge!). Here's a picture of the banshe herself:
This satellite picture is taken approximately 2 and a half hours after the storm hit us, we're the blue circle just to the left of the centre. Neither Doug or I were expecting this and gales raged at around 55 MPH. In the words of Doug:
"The storm hit us around midnight with sudden very high winds, lightning, and then massive amounts of rain. I got on deck in time to double up our docklines and then we waited it out for about an hour. After that it was just rain and more rain for another couple of hours.
The storm was about 100 miles wide at the widest point and 150 miles from north to south. It was moving East-Northeast, so all of that red in the upper right corner that you see in the attached picture gave us a solid pounding. I estimated the wind to be 50-60 miles per hour, but that was in the dark and after having been woken from a solid sleep. A friend told us that in his neighborhood, which is about 20 miles inland, they recorded 80 miles per hour.
We've heard many places around the DC area are without power. Some of our dock friends are actually moving on to their boat because they've been told it may be 5 days till the power is restored."
Tabitha coped remarkably well and was not deterred by the situation. I'm pretty sure that she would have slept through the whole storm had it not been for Doug's searching in the boat for his extra dock lines. Once the shock of the situation had subsided she quickly slipped back to sleep and was oblivious to all that was going on around her. I stayed awake until about 1.30am and Doug lasted out until the storm subsided at around 3am. I must say, I have never experienced or witnessed myself such extreme weather, although there was a moment when I was a bit scared (probably due to the surprise) it was exhilarating and Doug handled the situation with calm and confidence like any true sea captain would.
The storm has blown some of the heat away and today has been slightly cooler, we've had a relaxing time in the pool and plan to leave St. Michael's early to get back to the Marina. We've worked out that our cruise has been a solid round 75 miles of fun and adventure, shame that it has to come to an end.
As I'm sitting here writing this entry, I'm struck by how lucky I am to have this backdrop to my life, I can't deny that it's idyllic. Tabby is fast asleep and the prosecco is slipping down quite nicely thank you- the perfect evening after the perfect storm.
