Sillery Bay to Solomon’s Island

Day 1

October 19, 2019

Sillery Bay to Mills Creek

I didn’t sleep much last night, so excited and a little anxious. The day is finally here. We boat shopped for a good 5+ years before we found ‘our’ boat. Then we spent 3 years getting to know her. My captain made multiple upgrades and also a few repairs for the next 3 years. And now our dream is a reality. 

We are aboard Seaquel, our 47’ raised pilot house SeaRanger trawler. She is a beast! Big and heavy and slow and we adore her. 

Said goodbye to our gracious hosts Ted, Wayne and Amy and the Amy Daisy as we left Sillery Bay and headed to Solomon’s. 

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge. We drive across this bridge frequently on our trips to our Delaware house.  We always say we’d rather be under it! This will probably be our last time under it for a long time. Our plan is to head south to Florida and then the Bahamas. We will store Seaquel on an inland river in Northern Florida for hurricane season. 

We consider ourselves novice cruisers and lucky to be buddy boating with our friends Keith and Deb of Right Hand, a Defever 49. 

  

                                                       Right Hand

We did a two hour stop in Herrington Harbor, 350 gallons of fuel on super slow old style pumps and a pump out. When we got to Solomon’s we had no power to our anchor windlass. Thankfully, Deb and Keith were already anchored so we rafted up. 

Let me tell you about Keith. He is a renaissance man and a true mentsch. He hopped right on board and taught Eddie how to fix the issue. An hour later the windlass had power. It was now dark out so we stayed rafted overnight. Both Keith and Deb are licensed Captains and we have already learned so much from them.