[Rhodes22-list] Early Spring Chesapeake cruising?

[Mary Lou Troy]

It's a real roll of the dice. It's generally too early in the Upper 
Bay. Temperatures might be high in the 50s, or the 40s or if you are 
lucky the 60s. Lows overnight could be 30s to 40s. Generally stronger 
winds (but sometimes no wind at all). There won't be many boats 
around. We generally use March for boatwork and try to launch in 
early April. We are usually among the earlybirds.

Maybe someone in the Lower Bay will chime in. Again I suspect it's 
hit or miss.

One thing to remember for the East Coast is we still get nor'easters 
through the end of March and occasionally early April. If they are 
close to the coast, they are not to be trifled with. 40 to 50 mile 
winds are common and heavy precipitation. Some of the Philadelphia 
area's biggest snows have been in March though I suspect they may 
have been rain on the Bay.

If you want to do the Bay, it's usually better around Memorial Day. 
Some years there are a lot of people out but my experience is that a 
lot of folks aren't ready yet.

Best,
Mary Lou
1991 R22  Fretless
Rock Hall, MD


At 09:13 AM 2/2/2009, you wrote:

>We're exploring options for Spring Break (mid March) and wondered if that was
>too early to think of a road trip from Ohio to cruise the Chesapeake for a
>few days.  That would be the easiest East Coast water for us to reach (and
>the most northern we'd think about for that time of year).  Any thoughts,
>recommendations, etc from you East Coasters?  Plan B would probably be the
>Albemarle or Pamlico Sounds, but they're about twice the drive time for us.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Mike Cheung
>s/v Muireann 1993/2008 Rhodes 22
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