Up the Sassafras River

Monday, Sept 8^th –My interest in sailing started as a kid, when our parents would take us camping for vacation, we owned a small plastic sailboat called a Sunfish; in my teens my Dad, brother and cousin bought Lasers, bigger sail, much faster and a lot of more fun. Then my cousin bought a 23’ sailboat which 5 of us would take across Lake Ontario for a weekend, then upgraded to a 28’ sailboat that you can actually stand in. But it wasn’t until a once-in-a-life-time sailing trip to the BVI with my Dad, brother and two older cousins just before getting married to my First Mate, that I totally feel in love with the cruising life-style…I set a life motto and goal of 50 by 50…a 50 foot sailboat by age 50 and then go sailing. Every year, it was a guys weekend sail trip on Neil Bower’s 36’ Swan called Signet III.

Neil's Signet III

Neil has been a great friend with great conversations about sailing which has helped plenty. Since that once-in-a-life-time trip, Julie and I have been sailed the BVI's twice, once with Neil, and now sailing our own boat towards that dream! My First Mate grew up around boating as well. Julie’s father, Gord, built his own 22 foot cabin cruiser power boat when she was little. It took him 3 summers to build right in their backyard. Once, Julie and I went out into Humber Bay on their boat, it was dark, the outboard 115hp engine failed and I had to paddle like hell with one oar against the wind to land it on the rocks. We were so unprepared back then…no VHF radio, no flares…we could have ended up across Lake Ontario in New York. We are much better prepared today!

Our first objective this morning is fuel and water, right across the canal, we can actually see it. We had planned our timing for 10:00 at slack tide, but there is a large Mayflower like ship in front of the fuel dock blocking access. I hailed the marina on the VHF, the Mayflower was going to take another hour to fill their 1,000 gallon tank. The alternative was to reverse up the other side of the 300 feet dock in a narrow channel…the attendant commented on a job well done…knowing the tides, particularly slack tide, is a wonderful thing. We put 35 gallons into our tank and filled all four fuel cans on deck (5 gallons each).

It was to be a short day, only 21nm. With the current helping, we were moving at a good speed coming down the top of the Chesapeake, heading for the Sassafras River. The winds picked up just before turning up the river, and guess what, the wind is on our nose again to reduce our SOG to 3.9knts. Several miles up the river, we anchor, settled in and called US Customs to check-in. Officer Betty (you must record all calls and conversations with Customs) said the system was down but would definitely call us back today…at 19:30 I called backed and Officer Rodriguez said I need to call back in the morning, which I did…”what’s your Cruising License number?...okay, have a nice day.” There are several regions/sectors, each with a different number to call. Their systems don’t seem to be linked as they ask for the same info every time…it’s bit of a nuisance and you don’t want to make a mistake by not calling.

The water is definitely nicer here as it gets a lot of fresh water from the river but it's still greenish and you can’t see two feet down; and the area is very beautiful but Julie nor I feel like jumping in since the hot weather has past. We’re looking very forward to the warm crystal clear waters of the Caribbean.

Sassafras River at sunset