We made it to Virginia

Roger here.
Friday was a glorious sunny windy day We left the dock at 10:45. We put up our main sail shortened by two reefs and the small jib just after passing under the Verrazano Bridge. With the wind from the west, across our starboard side (think: passenger seat side) we blitzed down the coast of New Jersey to Atlantic City. But then the wind turned to the southwest and we had to go southwest and I made the mistake of excess caution: not putting up enough sail so were spent Saturday going rather too slowly. Sunday we continued tacking down the Delmarva Peninsula but we put up full sails and picked up a lot of speed. When we finally got south to the latitude of Chesapeake Bay, however, we were about 58 miles off shore and sailed west to the mouth of the Bay. However, we were able to calculate that if we continued, we would be entering the bay and the marina in the dark, fighting an adverse tide. So we decided to kill time for a few hours going nowhere as slowly as possible until we were able to calculate that it was time to head in. And we got tied up at the Bluewater Yachting Center in Hampton VA at about 8:30 Monday morning.
Highlights of the trip:
Ilene standing night watches in the ocean all bundled up against the severe cold on Friday night in six layers of clothing under her heavy insulated foul weather gear, mittens, hat, life preserver and harness; I won't say that she never griped but she was a good sport overall.
A flicker, a land bird with a red band around the back of his neck who landed a foot from my head and hitchhiked with us for about an hour; he seemed exhausted. (Pictures will have to await Lene's return to NY where I accidentally left the cable that permits transfer of photos to the computer.)
Some rather close encounters with large container ships who did not respond to my radio message: "Merchant vessel approaching the Virginia Coast: This is the sailing vessel ILENE, off your starboard bow; do you see me." We had the right of way, but altered course to pass astern of such unresponsive behemoths.
We can't thank Dennis Groves enough for coming with us on this journey; he was a great help, very knowledgeable and never complained, even over the fact that because I forgot to load the propane tank we had cold food the entire trip; no coffee, cocoa or soup to warm cold bodies.
A school of dolphins who accompanied us for the ten miles or so from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel to the mouth of the Hampton River, surfacing at our sides and under our bow, in the early morning, with their smiley faces.

Tomorrow starts six days of preparations and training and parties and made more pleasant by my college roommate, Stan Hoegerman, who will lend us his car! This evening, he and his wife Carol with join Lene and me and dennis for dinner: all three of the men being Cornellians!