Monday, October 3, 2011

Fishing Bay Yacht Club - at a dock

We're at the end of this dock, nice club!
We had planned for an anchorage right below Mill Creek but we had made such good time that it was too early to stop so we headed for Fishing Bay, about 12 miles further south. For once everything was in our favor, the wind and the tide - so we averaged about 7.8 kts heading south (with the tide boost) and got into Fishing Bay YC around 3:00 pm. The entrance is notorious for being shallow but over the summer it had been dredged and now it's 9 ft or better all the way in! If you belong to a recognized yacht club, you can dock at the Fishing Bay YC for free, including a 30 amp hookup! The free dock is at the end of the east docks. There's room for two  boats but we were the only ones there tonight.

It's a fixed dock, tight fit

It was the steward's night off so we had to come into the dock by ourselves. It's a fixed dock with pilings on both sides of the slip so it's a relatively tight fit but there was little wind and tide so we made it okay. We have learned that coming into a slip with pilings, using fenders is not a good idea. They just hang up on the pilings, caught between the boat and the piling - either pulling through and slowing the boat in the process or stopping the boat altogether - or, worse yet, bending the stanchions. So now we always coming into a slip that has pilings naked, no fenders. So far all we've ever encounted is bare wood that does not mar the boat with the modern pilings with the green preservatives, it doesn't come off on the boat.

Tonight is supposed to be the last night of cold weather (below 60) and a warming trend is scheduled for the coming week (we didn't buy a weather contract on that prediction yet). The weatherman's forecast for today was spot on, no problems with winds of 5 to 10 out of the west. Hopefully, Tuesday will be the same but the wind is predicted to be higher and more northerly (a possible sail??) On to Hampton, VA.