Years and years ago — when we first started taking sailing lessons — one of the old salts who helped us out had some simple daily procedures.
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Check the engine oil.
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Check the weather.
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Check the winds and tides.
He had a piece of paper where we wrote down the forecast. I've managed to ingrain that habit well enough to log a few thousand sea miles without a major mishap. Small things haven't gone perfectly well, but — touch wood for luck — nothing serious has gone wrong.
After a long layup, we're finally moving again. The trip is scheduled for Saturday.
Since we're working. We're wedging this in, hoping for good weather. If this doesn't work out, we won't be able to try again for almost a month.
Looking at https://www.windfinder.com/forecast/point_lookout_potomac for details on the forecast for Saturday and Sunday. This is only part way up the Bay, but it's approximately mid-journey, so it's as good an indicator as is available.
Saturday. Looks like wind out of the E falling through the day from a brisk morning blow down to pretty flat in the PM.
Sunday. Appears to be similar. A brisk morning with rain. Followed by a calm afternoon. Since we don't have quite so far to go, perhaps we'll wait around for the rain to let up before striking out North.
If the direction works out, we'll have a nice beam reach Saturday afternoon.
Looking at http://weather.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/fmtbltn.pl?file=forecasts/marine/coastal/an/anz630.txt
We have this:
SAT
NE WINDS 10 TO 15 KT. WAVES 1 TO 2 FT.
SAT NIGHT
E WINDS 5 TO 10 KT. WAVES 1 FOOT.
SUN
E WINDS 5 TO 10 KT. WAVES 1 FOOT. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS.
SUN NIGHT
SE WINDS 10 KT. WAVES 1 TO 2 FT. SHOWERS LIKELY.
Rain. Rough in the morning, but tapering off toward night. That's acceptable. Wind from the NE will make for an ugly start to the day. But. 1-2 seas isn't too bad.