ICW South Departure

5+5=10... YEARS in the planning...for this day!
We did it, we depart for the ICW South to Bahamas.

After what seemed like forever working on the boat and preparing for our trip south, we finally left the dock in Rock Hall, MD for our first trip SOUTH on the ICW, Intracoastal Waterway. Destination the Florida Keys and Bahamas! We have been planning and dreaming of this day for well over 10 years and to actually have it arrive seemed like a dream. I have to say, the most difficult aspect of any voyage is actually leaving the dock. It is so easy to get yourself into an endless vortex of fixing one more thing, installing one more item, buying one more car load, and stowing all the items, that you might never leave. We fell into this deeply and my best guess is that we stored well over 15 dock carts of "stuff" on Island Spirit. Amazingly, it all fits! Island Packets have a lot of storage space and now we know just how much. We probably have enough onboard to sail around the world, but we are only driving to Florida. This is the reality of all new cruisers, we are told. We take too much and worry too much! So for now, we are very happy that we departed the docks and we look forward to the adventures ahead.

Here are some photos of the day...

Good friend Rich sailed out Swan Creek with us
Rich and Wanda have the coolest sailing son, Connor
Check out this great boat name: R-Wanda-OR

South of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge looking towards Annapolis
I love to photograph this structure.

Our first ship, the MSC Sindy
Those are containers or tractor trailer boxes full of imported products

1,100 feet long, 10 boxes high, 10-15 wide, and 15 rows plus below decks.
We are employing the Chinese at $1/hr while we lay off USA workers!
We need to equalize the world labor cost in all products or else we will NEVER have jobs!

Cove Point Lighthouse off Solomons, MD
with Dominion Cove Point Liquid Natural Gas Storage Tanks over the hill

We dropped anchor as the sun was setting over the bow

Radeen is a great cook and made a wonderful hot beef dinner.
Yes, that is steam rising. It is a bit nippy out here!

Boat buddies Eric and Patricia aboard IP460 Cutter Loose took this
photo of Island Spirit as we arrived in Solomons.

Overall...this was our BEST first day ever. The boat ran well, our motor work seems to be running smoothly, and the weather is PERFECT. Looks like we have 5 days ahead of high pressure.

The run south begins. Thank you for traveling along.