It was an Epic

Yes, well, this part looks nice. Notice there are very few wind ripples on this water. Yesterday, Mouse, Kelly, and I sailed Puddleduck from Middle River to Havre de Grace. If we had the wind right, it should have taken between 6 and 10 hours. Well, the wind wasn't right. It took over 15 hours to make the trip, and we ended up motoring in to the marina at 1:30 in the morning.

We learned a lot of things on this trip. The 'Duck doesn't sail too well in very light airs. How light? Here you go:
Does the phrase "glassy calm" mean anything to you? I think at this point we were making 1.2 knots. Might've been tidal drift.

Another thing we learned was about contingency planning. Fortunately, we had elected to put another three gallons of gas in the tank. It was sucking air when we pulled in. We absolutely should have started out with a full tank, and probably a spare.

We also should have picked out a marina part way along, where we could pull in and grab a transient slip for the night. We were pressed for time, though.

That was another lesson. Don't start a long trip if you absolutely must be somewhere else the next day. Things happen.

I was also amazed at the number of Coast Guard "Pan Pan" calls. And at the number of boaters who think VHF channel 16 is equivalent to CB 19.

One other thing I'd like to point out is that we wouldn't have been able to motor up the channel without pre-plotting the course on the GPS. I am planning to buy a GPS chartplotter for the boat in short order! It would have been so handy to be able to see our position relative to the channel, without shooting bearings and plotting position on the chart. That was a major pain.

Oh, and sunblock is a good idea....