We came into Hampton on October 24 to meet up with the Salty Dawg Rally. What nice people! It will be easy to make friends and we are looking forward to seeing people over the winter as we travel around the islands.

The past week has been spent doing last minute jobs, provisioning and generally preparing for our passage. What food and drink will 5 people need for up to two weeks? And where will we put it??

We took a day off to explore the barrier islands at the bottom of the Delmarva peninsula. The first part of the trip took us over the Bay Bridge / Tunnel which stretches about 17 miles across the entrance to the Chesapeake. On the other side it’s a very different world, with marshes, wildlife sanctuaries and little resort towns.

Our crew arrived on Saturday and were put to work filling jerry cans, deflating the dinghy and figuring out how to get everything back into the lazarette – sorry guys!!

We’ve been participating in daily weather briefings where we’ve discussed current and projected conditions for getting south. Unfortunately right now the conclusion is “You can’t get there from here”. There are several weather systems around which would conspire to give us a tough trip. We – and many others – have decided to wait it out, with the thought that we may have a better window around Sunday. Two of our crew have gone back home for a few days and the other has headed to Cape Hatteras for other adventures! Hopefully the next time I post it will be to say that we are about to leave.

Boats gathering in the marina in preparation for the rally

Storing provisions – I write what it is on the top of the can so I don’t have to pull them all out to find what I need

Beach at Cape Charles

And just when I thought I’d got everything stowed away…..

The rally organized a demo from US Coast Guard Search-and-Rescue – very cool

Strong headwinds coming up in a day or two according to this PredictWind shot. PredictWind is a great tool that we use a lot to see what conditions to expect. You can also use it to track our position including while we are offshore using this link: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Persephone/