Start of the Adventure

It's been an adventure starting our adventure. Let me catch you up. We worked our butts off to get the house packed and cleaned to meet our deadline of departing to be at a Ware Family Reunion/ Memorial Service for my uncle Cab in Naushon Island off Woods Hole on July 17th. The boat was almost ready, but I had a longish list of "honey do" chores to make the boat more habitable. As we emptied the last cupboards and closets, and moved onto the boat, the boat became packed with more stuff than I could believe. We had several farewell drinks with friends, crammed around projects and packing. On Tuesday, July 15th, we were FINALLY ready to leave. Unfortunately, the tide at Lippincott Marina on Kent Island was unusually low- as in at low tide midday, there was two feet of hull aft of the stem out of the water. If the dock lines hadn't been tight, the boat would have fallen over. The higher high tide of the day was a midnight. After a long, very hot and tiring day, we departed on our big adventure at midnight, picking our way out of the marina and down the Kent Narrows channel south with Tricia and Ginny on the bow with a searchlight. It was an absolutely beautiful night, warm, light breeze out of the west and LOTS of stars as we rounded Bloody Point at the end of Kent Island to start our trip north up the Chesapeake. With the rest of the crew asleep, and me at the helm, the engine suddenly revved like it was in neutral. I quickly put it in neutral and killed it. Tricia was on deck quickly, and I went below to check it we had lost the prop/ shaft. I was happy to not find water flooding the engine compartment. Then I was confused to find two bolt heads under the shaft coupling. We quickly set the jib. It was 0330. By 1030, we had sailed into Annapolis and anchored off the Naval Academy. A quick dipped showed that we had not picked up a crab pot, so the cause of the broken coupling bolts was still a mystery. We called Diversified Marine Services who had installed the new shaft over the winter, and made arrangements to have the boat hauled at Bert Jabins Yacht Yard. The wind was still <5 knots, so we sailed off the anchor, and asked BJYY to standby with line handlers to receive us. Amazed how few people yielded to a 44' sailboat sailing up a narrow channel, but we made it to the Travelift without too much adrenaline. First voyage ended without injury to anything but the checkbook.