Fishing Bay, VA - Three Hour Tour

We spent the morning at the marina tidying up the interior of the boat and washing down the deck. We had a little lunch and then decided it was time to move on. The sun was beating down mercilessly, but we figured once we got going there would be a breeze since the forecast called for 10-15 knots out of the south. Oh, it also mentioned a chance of showers and thunderstorms. But it had also predicted showers for the past two days and it didn't rain. So we figured we'd be okay for a quick 30 mile trip. For those of you not familiar with literary devices: this is foreshadowing, folks.

We hoisted the mainsail and were cruising along for about an hour before we started to see a very dark, very fast-moving, mass of clouds ahead. It was so well-defined you could see the leading edge very clearly outlined against the shrinking patch of clear sky. And lightning. Lots and lots of lightning. Did I mention that this boat was struck by lighting twice before we bought it?

First things first, we lowered our sail and then Kevin slowed our engine speed, hoping to let the storm pass in front of us. But unlike the fast-moving brief squalls we encountered in the Bahamas, this was a full-blown thunderstorm that would last the rest of the afternoon. We were soon surrounded by rain and our visibility dropped to about 400 feet all around us. We put on our foul weather gear and the rain just dumped on us, coming down in sheets and being blown sideways into the cockpit by the wind, which gusted up to 35 knots. The lightning was everywhere and the bone-shattering thunder was never far behind. Usually when a storm like this hits we are at anchor, but there was no good harbor on the charts until we got to our destination and we'd gone too far to turn back, so we just had to stick it out. After about an hour of getting drenched the original GPS that came with the boat flickered off. Water must've gotten down in there and shorted it. Luckily we never use that GPS since we bought the chartplotter last fall which has built in GPS. Between the chartplotter showing us where we were and the radar showing us other ships and buoys, we were in pretty good shape even though the visibility was so poor. Both of us peered around into the rain to make sure we didn't hit anything or get tangled up in any crab traps. It was exhausting. Finally the rain let up a little as we approached the channel to get into Fishing Bay only to pound us again as soon as we were inside. Again, the chartplotter came in handy, helping us to see the channel markers, and we were able to find safe anchorage. Our trusty Delta anchor bit into the sandy bottom and we were able to take off our wet gear and get dry inside. We changed into dry clothes, cleaned up some drips of water on the floor (we have a leaky hatch in one of the bathrooms) and settled down for a dinner of nice hot soup.