David’s Voyage Blog

This morning we slipped our lines from Washburn’s Boatyard in Solomons, Maryland and pointed the bow south. Yesterday (Friday) was my last day as Composite Software’s full-time CTO, and although I will be providing ongoing consulting services on a part-time basis, I feel mostly unemployed. In other words, this morning we began our Three@Sea cruising adventure in earnest. What a great day it’s been!

We cruised for about eight hours, going from Solomons, Maryland to Deltaville, Virginia, where we pulled into a beautiful deep-water anchorage. We were soon joined by two other Nordhavns (both 57’s), and a handful of sailboats. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset, and it looks like it’s going to be a very quiet evening — perfect conditions for the still-nervous anchor chief (me).

We spent the last week in a Comfort Inn hotel in Solomons while Three@Sea was out of the water (i.e., “on the hard”) getting a bottom job (which means to clean and re-paint all the underwater parts of the boat). The team at Washburn’s was fantastic, and Three@Sea looked beautiful with her new underside paint job. Washburn’s also helped with a few other maintenance items, and we feel like Three@Sea is in tip-top shape for the beginning of her voyage.

It’s hard to describe the feeling I had this morning when we pulled out of the harbor at first light. It reminded me of the late scene in “The Shawshank Redemption”, when Morgan Freeman’s character is heading to Mexico on the bus: “I’m so excited I can barely hold a thought in my head. It’s the feeling of a free man at the beginning of a long journey, the conclusion of which is uncertain.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. Bon voyage!