Tuesday May 15, 2018 - Reedville to Solomons

Last night was exiting.  A thunderstorm came through and True Blue was rocking, rolling, and heeling.  But it only lasted 20 minutes and then it was just a nice steady rain for part of the night.  About an hour after I had anchored last night, a 35' sailboat came into the anchorage.  But, unlike me (close to shore and as much protection as possible), he stayed out in the middle of the fairly large bay.  In the morning, they were gone.  I suspect they drug their anchor in the storm and decided to move to another location (or left before 5am in the morning).

I left the anchorage at 6am and raised the main.  They were calling for SW 10-15 in the morning, increasing in the afternoon.  I didn't have that far to go to Solomons so I figured I'd be in ahead of the wind.  With that in mind, no reefs in the sails.  I had a nice sail out the Great Wicomoco and into the Bay.  I was about half way across the mouth of the Potomac and the wind died.  I ran the engine for about 2 hours and then it started back up - same direction.  I was near my favorite lighthouse - Point No Point.  I love the name but I'm not sure if there is a story on how it got that name.  As I approached the Patuxent River, the wind increased.  When I turned to go west into Solomons, I was reaching with 20 to 25 knot winds (no reefs).  I dropped the main half way up Mill Creek and anchored at my favorite location - just east of Pancake Point.

At about 10pm, I was texting with my new friend Doug. He said he had been reading on Facebook about lots of bad storms up my way.  It was dead calm but I checked the radar and saw weather very close by.  Before I turned on my inside chart plotter to set a track and anchor alarm, the wind went from zero to 30 (direction unknown, at that moment).  As soon as the chart plotter came up, it showed True Blue tracking straight from where I had been anchored to the shore about 300 feet away.   I ran up the steps, got my bearings (in the dark), started the engine, and was able to get the boat to move out of the mud and into the wind.   Then I began the exercise of running back and forth from the bow to the wheel, trying to bring in the anchor.  The wind would give me about 20 seconds before blowing the bow back off toward the shore.  Several times, I had to turn back into the wind with full throttle before locking the wheel.  Finally, after about 10 minutes, I had the anchor up and I was in deeper water.  I was VERY lucky I had grounded before hitting another boat or a dock.  It was pretty scary with a couple gusts easily over 40 or 50.  I decided to relocate to a spot further up Mill Creek where there is more protection from the (then) east winds.  By the time I got there (took 5 minutes), the wind was down to 10 to 15.  Fortunately, through all this, there was no rain at all.  But once I was anchored again, it began raining and rained for some time.