solo

It looks like I might be sailing solo on the fall trip.  Bruce and I compared schedules yesterday and they were not compatible.  Work has me locked in to a narrow time frame for a cruise, Bruce has some family commitments.  Things may change, in fact I don't need a firm commitment until early September.  But as it looks right now I will be doing a single-handed cruise.

Most likely I'll be returning to the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, sailing north from the bottom of Tangier Sound to Oxford and/or Tilghman Island on the Choptank River.  It will be similar to the cruise I did last September.  Here are a few of my reasons for returning to the same sailing area...

• I like fall sailing on Chesapeake Bay.  I have wanting for awhile to evolve into a pattern of spring sails in coast North Carolina, fall sails on the Bay.
• Weather is typically very nice, the heat of the summer giving way to the first cool fronts of the fall.
• Fishing is excellent as bluefish and stripers begin to school.
• There is a lot of good sports on the radio from the DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia markets.  NFL should be (hopefully) in full swing by then, major league baseball should be having their playoffs. When sailing solo the radio can be great company.
• Tangier Sound, the Honga River, the Little Choptank River and the Choptank River offer countless places to visit.  In three trips through the area I have just scratched the surface.

So I'll get out the chart book, begin tracing the path.  Great Fox Island?  I haven't been there since my first sail in Spartina in '07.  Crisfield?  It has been a while.  Rippons Harbor at the south end of the Hooper Islands?  I've only seen it from across the Honga River, never took the time to visit.  Maybe I will this fall.  The Little Choptank River?  I've just explored the mouth of the river, I need to sail back into Fishing Creek and Madison Bay to have a look around.

While Bruce was saying he could not make it this fall, he did suggest we think about completing our circumnavigation of the Delmarva Peninsula over the next couple of seasons.  Right now we have covered Onancock north to Rock Hall.  Next fall maybe we'll sail from Rock Hall north on the Bay to the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal, then south on Delaware Bay to Lewes.  The following year, sail down the ocean side of the peninsula from Lewes to Cape Charles, then up the Bay to Onancock.  That sounds like a plan worth considering.

steve