Maia returns home

Our last few days in Annapolis were filled with friends and family. We said our goodbyes to friends and introduced ourselves to a few more. Kevin flew in to visit and Mom and Dad drove up to join us…and I hosted two dinner parties for 7 two days in a row! Seven fit nicely at the table; we can try for 8, but I may have to eat standing up in the galley. We met Kevin’s friend’s Courtney and Kate and introduced my family to Michael and Daniel. Dawn and Ron fed us once again in elegant style and then we were rushing to get out of Annapolis for the last leg of our cruise.

The weather wasn’t agreeable for leaving on Tuesday, but I can’t imagine it was much worse than Wednesday. We left our slip at Severn House in Back Creek (N38 57.69 W76 29.08) in the pouring rain and motor-sailed in the light Northerly winds. We spoke over the VHF radio with Matt and Gayle on Alisios, who were celebrating the first day of their 7 month cruise! Our predicted winds started freshening up in the afternoon and we could finally sail through the rain without the noise of the motor. The winds were in full force by nightfall and we doused the jib so we didn’t get down to Norfolk too early. The 25-30 knots winds weren’t quite interested in our plans though, and pushed us to Norfolk a couple of hours before sunrise, with a couple of accidental jibes thrown in, just to make me cry. We lucked-out once we were south of Norfolk, and rather than having to idle in front of the first bridge in the drizzle, we got to follow an Army Cops of Engineers boat through all twelve bridges and one lock! We motorsailed our way into North Carolina and just past Coinjock we spotted Renaissance at anchor; we stopped by to chat with Mary & Mark one last time as they make their way south. We anchored a few miles downriver in Broad Creek at 5pm Thursday evening (N36 12.16 W75 57.73). We continued our trip south on Friday; Reinhart at the helm all day, delighted with his new autopilot remote control. We even got a chance to pull someone off the bottom in the shallow and shifty Alligator-Pungo canal. We anchored south of Belhaven in the Pungo Creek (N35 30.81 W76 38.60). We left at first light on Saturday and were treated to a spectacular sunrise and a double rainbow to start off our last leg to Northwest Creek Marina in New Bern.

We are back in a slip in our old marina (NWCM F-25, N35 03.98 W76 58.12), where we started our journey last July. It will be another 3 months before we see Maia, our home of the past 15 months, again. So, it’s probably best that we are so busy, frantically packing up everything we can fit in Mom and Dad’s car. Neither of us are particularly in the mood for reflection; I guess that will come in the next couple of months. We definitely are in the mood to see old friends and family and then hop in Andreas’ car and head to Hampton for our sail south on Splendido.