A day (or two) late...

We're still here! After a great night being pirates we took "Anam Cara" out for her shakedown cruise. Well... We have a few small problems to work out. First we have to tell you that there is a bridge, that doesn't open, right next to the marina. Second, you need to know that our boat needs 48 Ft. Of clearance to go under any bridge. Lastly, you need to know that during high tide there is just about 48 feet of clearance under that bridge.
So the story begins. We set out with our new friends to take our boats out to a nice little anchorage a few miles from the marina (AT HIGH TIDE- mistake #1). They motor under the bridge with no problems other than a nice little slap of the antenna that stands about 3 feet above their mast. We feel confident that we can make it under since our boats are only a foot difference in length. That was mistake #2. We motor slowly forward and SMACK, the antennae hits. No problem, it is made to bend. We continue forward. The bridge must lean slightly to one side because about half way under the bridge the height drops and CRASH, there goes our wind vane. KAPOW, there goes our anchor light. We're about to have spontaneous heart attacks. Finally, we are clear of the bridge, our wind vane and anchor light bent backward but our mast is still standing so on we go.
The winds begin to pick up and we have a great sail until we notice that our furling Genoa (the front sail) seems to be bent a little more than it should be. We think that we need to tighten it so we put it away and sail under the main sail alone. A wonderful sail, it was. The highlight were the dolphins who swam of our bow for a few minutes. They are absolutely amazing creatures. We reach a nice sheltered anchorage and tie up alongside "Lajnad"to enjoy an evening with friends. The next morning Travis had to go up the mast to untangle one of his lines (see the pic below). Then we were off. Little did we know that the winds had picked up to 20-25 mph on the Cheasapeake Bay. We had to motor straight into the wind, and currents and were barely able to reach 1 knot speed. We motored for about an hour (at total of ~ 1 mile) to a nice little fort that we were planning to tour, only to be turned away by a caretaker saying that we were not allowed to land there. Well, bah-humbug! So we turned back toward the marina and had a great down wind sail with the main reefed (made smaller, because there was so much wind and we didn't want to tear up our sails). We reached 7 knots with the reefed main and I dropped a fishing line that just skipped along on top of the water because we were moving to fast. We waited until LOW tide and made it safely under the bridge back to the marina where we had one heck of a time trying to back in to our slip with the 20mph winds trying to push us forward.
All in all, it was a great trip. We are waiting for the wind to die down so that we can unfurl our Genoa and tighten her up. We now plan to leave Thursday morning at low tide.
We hope all is well at home!

Love,
Damaged Don and
Squally Sandi